<
https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.11/north-wildlife-how-a-rare-butterfly-returned>
"From the top of Pigeon Butte in western Oregon’s William L. Finley National
Wildlife Refuge, the full width of the Willamette Valley fits into a gaze.
Slung between the Coast Range and the Cascades, the valley is checkered with
farmland: grass-seed fields, hazelnut orchards, vineyards. In the foreground,
however, grassy meadows scattered with wildflowers and occasional oaks trace
the land’s contours.
Upland prairie landscapes like these once covered 685,000 acres of the
Willamette Valley. By 2000, only a 10th of 1% remained. Their disappearance has
meant the decline of countless species that once thrived here; some are
endangered, others have disappeared. Among the nearly lost is a nickel-sized
butterfly called Fender’s blue.
Endemic to this valley, Fender’s blue was first collected in 1929. Shortly
thereafter, it vanished, and, for 50 years, no one could find the
sapphire-winged insect; it was presumed extinct. But in 1988, a 12-year-old boy
netted a few in a meadow outside Eugene, and a lepidopterist officially
rediscovered the butterfly the following year. It was added to the endangered
species list in 2000, when fewer than 3,400 remained.
Now, the butterfly’s population has quadrupled and the species is slated to be
downlisted from endangered to threatened. If this status change is finalized,
as is expected to happen this year, Fender’s blue will become only the second
insect to have recovered in the history of the Endangered Species Act."
Via
Future Crunch issue 192:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
