{"id":16129,"date":"2017-02-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-hakamagwp.pantheonsite.io\/features\/saving-silverspot"},"modified":"2024-03-19T10:48:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T17:48:25","slug":"saving-silverspot","status":"publish","type":"custom_features","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/features\/saving-silverspot\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving the Silverspot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The FedEx guy for the Oregon Zoo in Portland must never run out of stories to tell at parties. On this particular July morning, amid the chaos of children arriving for day camp as the zoo gates open, he\u2019s picking up a box of chimp feces on its way to a primatologist in Chicago. In its place, he\u2019s leaving something precious\u2014Oregon silverspot butterfly pupae, carefully packed and shipped overnight from Seattle\u2019s Woodland Park Zoo for their release on the Oregon coast.<\/p>\n<p>Karen Lewis, a conservation research associate at the zoo, has been waiting restlessly for his arrival. There\u2019s a moment of panic when the microwave-sized package is accidentally delivered to the loading dock, not the front desk, but once it\u2019s located, she tucks her salt-and-pepper curls behind her ears, loads the beat-up cardboard box onto a cart, and heads for the butterfly lab.<\/p>\n<p>The Oregon silverspot is an unremarkable-looking orange-and-black butterfly with a big problem\u2014its survival depends on fragile oceanfront real estate, where salty breezes help maintain the open habitat it needs. For years, the team working to save silverspots has been painstakingly rearing caterpillars in captivity to boost their numbers. Now the scientists involved are preparing for their next big feat: reintroducing a population at a site where the butterflies disappeared long ago. If they can rebuild a network along the northwest coast, spread across latitudes and elevations to buffer the species against the changing climate, the silverspot might have a second chance.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>At the lab, Lewis bows her head over paperwork with Kaegan Scully-Engelmeyer, the contractor who will be taking the pupae into the field. The Oregon Zoo\u2019s own silverspots are lagging in their development, so for this first release of the year, the biologists will rely on the shipment from Seattle. By the end of July, they will have placed captive-reared pupae in critical habitat at several sites on the Oregon coast. Each one is destined for a specific meadow based on its parentage, all carefully planned out by Lewis to maximize genetic diversity.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" ><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/qtip-oregon-silverspot.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/qtip-oregon-silverspot.jpg\" width=\"1200\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">An Oregon silverspot butterfly picks its meal off a cotton swab at the Oregon Zoo\u2019s butterfly lab. Photo by Michael Durham\/Courtesy of the Oregon Zoo<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At one point, Oregon silverspots, which are unique to the Pacific Northwest, ranged from roughly northern California to Washington\u2019s Olympic Peninsula. They thrived in a number of different habitats\u2014coastal dunes, seaside meadows, montane grasslands in the Oregon Coast Range\u2014but always near the ocean. Salt spray and wildfires helped create the open, treeless conditions needed for their favorite host plant, the early blue violet, to flourish.<\/p>\n<p>A cocktail of factors caused silverspot numbers to dwindle, but they all come down to one thing\u2014habitat loss. Fire suppression and the processes of ecological succession allowed their meadows to fill with shrubs and trees. Invasive plants crowded out the violets. Developers paved over coastal dunes to build condos and hotels. Now, the changing climate poses an additional, imminent threat to the remaining populations.<\/p>\n<p>Silverspots were listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act in 1980, and soon after, conservationists hatched their plan to prevent them from blinking out. Step one in the campaign\u2014an informal collaboration between multiple organizations, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the US Forest Service (USFS)\u2014was figuring out how to keep the remaining isolated populations viable. The Oregon Zoo launched its captive rearing program in the late 1990s (joined by Seattle\u2019s zoo in 2000) to shelter and protect caterpillars before releasing them back into the wild to reproduce.<\/p>\n<div class=\"vimeo responsive-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Silverspot Butterfly\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/202958140?app_id=122963\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"wp-caption-text\">Watch an Oregon silverspot caterpillar transform into a pupa. Time-lapse video courtesy of the Oregon Zoo<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Female butterflies collected by zoo staff in the fall from Mount Hebo, a peak 160 kilometers southwest of Portland in the Oregon Coast Range, lay their eggs in the butterfly lab. The two-room space tucked near the lion enclosure is crammed with rows of shelves that house silverspots and other threatened butterflies at all stages of development. After they hatch, the black-and-yellow caterpillars, which start out the size of small grains of rice, are kept in the refrigerator for the winter, hibernating in moist but well-ventilated jars. \u201cThink about conditions at the coast in the winter\u2014we\u2019re talking fog and rain and wind blowing,\u201d says Lewis. The refrigerator is the best approximation at the zoo.<\/p>\n<p>When spring arrives, staff members remove the caterpillars from cold storage and provide each one with the 200 to 300 violet leaves\u2014sourced from plants grown by inmates at a nearby women\u2019s prison\u2014that it needs to increase its size by several orders of magnitude and then pupate within two months.<\/p>\n<p>Fine-tuned through years of practice, the release process at the field sites involves placing plastic trays of individually labeled pupae inside mesh cages to protect them from predators. Workers place a bouquet of nectar plants, such as pearly everlasting and goldenrod, in the southwest corner of each cage, facing the warmth of the sun, to guide butterflies to the opening where they can escape into the environment.<\/p>\n<p>Today marks an unsettling change to this annual routine: it will be the first time anyone has released butterflies to augment the Mount Hebo population, which has always been the species\u2019 stronghold and the source of the butterflies that the zoos rely on for their captive rearing program. The past two years have brought hot, dry summers, leaving even the Mount Hebo butterflies struggling as the nectar plants they rely on wither.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" ><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/release-enclosure-oregon-silverspot.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/release-enclosure-oregon-silverspot.jpg\" width=\"1200\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Enclosures at release sites keep pupae safe from weather and predators until the butterflies are ready to emerge. Photo by Kaegan Scully-Engelmeyer<\/p><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Mount Hebo is on USFS land, a two-hour drive from Portland. I join Scully-Engelmeyer in his pickup truck and gaze out at the Oregon Coast Range landscape, a string of low peaks between the ocean and the more rugged Cascade Range. Much of it is forested, but here and there the trees give way to the open meadows favored by silverspots.<\/p>\n<p>At the site, we meet up with two forest service staff and head for the butterfly meadows. The Pacific Ocean, lined with huge rock outcroppings known as sea stacks, dominates the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt isn\u2019t uncommon for these populations to go through cycles, but what we\u2019ve been seeing these last couple years is dramatic lows,\u201d the USFS\u2019s Michelle Dragoo says as we carry trays of pupae and bunches of pearly everlasting to a release site. \u201cWe think it\u2019s due to large-scale climate factors. It\u2019s not that the total amount of precipitation in a given year is going to dramatically change, but the timing of that precipitation is going to shift. We\u2019ll have warmer summer temperatures with less rain, and milder winters with more rain. Obviously that has implications for the plant communities and the hydrology. It\u2019s going to be interesting to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" ><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/eggs-oregon-silverspot.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/eggs-oregon-silverspot.jpg\" width=\"1200\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oregon silverspot eggs, no larger than a grain of sand, are kept safe at the Oregon Zoo. Photo by Michael Durham\/Courtesy of the Oregon Zoo<\/p><\/div>\n<p>She points out the cheerful white daisies dotting the meadow we\u2019re standing in. Oxeye daisy is not a native plant, and this is the first time it\u2019s bloomed so abundantly here, something USFS staffers blame on hotter, drier summers. Things are changing. And not in butterfly-friendly ways.<\/p>\n<p>Captive rearing is like life support\u2014it\u2019s kept the species alive, buying scientists time to figure out the best course of treatment. Now, after years of preparation, they\u2019re almost ready to go for the cure.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>A recipient of the first major butterfly transfusion will be Nestucca Bay, a wildlife refuge managed by the USFWS on the Oregon coast. It\u2019s nestled near the sites of two of the remaining silverspot populations\u2014Cascade Head to the south and Mount Hebo to the east\u2014and presumably hosted silverspots of its own in the past, though no one knows how long ago they vanished. Before the land became a national wildlife refuge in 1991, it was a dairy farm, and cows spread reed canary grass, an aggressive grass usually found only in wetlands, to the headland prairies, where it formed dense, single-species mats.<\/p>\n<p>In 2008, the USFWS finally got funding to build a trail so the public could access the refuge. \u201cWhen we did that, we were looking around at what the site had been,\u201d says Rebecca Chuck, deputy project leader for the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex, \u201cand we decided, well, there are butterflies just south and north, what if we put their nectar plants all along the trail and see how that works?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" ><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/nestucca-bay-oregon-silverspot.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/nestucca-bay-oregon-silverspot.jpg\" width=\"1200\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nestucca Bay is one of two places where conservationists will attempt to establish new populations of Oregon silverspots this year. Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service<\/p><\/div>\n<p>They started small\u2014clearing the reed canary grass patch by patch and replanting with native grass, nectar plants, and violets. Along the way, Chuck and her collaborators have exhaustively documented what works and what doesn\u2019t, figuring out their methods as they go. Recently they carried out a controlled burn on the site, because the native grass they\u2019d planted had become so successful that they had to stop it from outcompeting the flowers. \u201cIf something doesn\u2019t give us the result that we want, then we\u2019re not doing that again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>A mix of refuge staff, volunteers, school groups, and nonprofit partners has carried out the hard work of restoration at Nestucca Bay. Inmates at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the women\u2019s prison two hours inland that provides the violet leaves and nectar plants for the zoos, also grow many of the plants used at the wildlife refuge, receiving training in horticulture while contributing to conservation efforts. The Pelican Brewing Company in nearby Pacific City has sold a special Silverspot IPA to raise money for the species.<\/p>\n<p>Long term, the best way to protect the butterflies from climate change is to establish populations at a range of elevations and latitudes, preventing adverse weather in any one spot from wiping out the species. Chuck and her colleagues received a grant to accelerate their restoration work and are finalizing plans to release a small experimental population of silverspots, drawn from the pupae Lewis rears at the zoo, both at Nestucca Bay and at another site called Saddle Mountain this coming summer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" ><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/goldenrod-oregon-silverspot2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/goldenrod-oregon-silverspot2.jpg\" width=\"1200\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newly emerged Oregon silverspot butterflies feed on goldenrod flowers at a release site. Photo by Kaegan Scully-Engelmeyer<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Despite the challenges involved, Chuck is hopeful about the butterflies\u2019 future. With luck, she believes, the lessons from the trial-and-error restoration at Nestucca Bay can be applied elsewhere to create more viable habitat.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Back at Mount Hebo, each garnet-colored, jewel-like pupa gleams in its compartment in the release cage. Inside, the alchemy of metamorphosis propels them toward what\u2019s next. When the adult butterflies emerge into the ocean-scented air, they\u2019ll have about three weeks of life in which to search for early blue violets to lay their eggs on. As they seek to perpetuate their species for one more generation, they\u2019ll carry the hopes of many on their wings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of scientists and land managers is racing to save a butterfly that depends on fragile coastal habitat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13082,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":"","hero_video_caption":"","deck":"A team of scientists and land managers is racing to save a butterfly that depends on fragile coastal habitat.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15681]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"x4a58c\/Saving_the_Silverspot.mp3","podbean2":"zqqkr-6f0444","redirect":"","geolocation":{"address":"SW Zoo Parking Rd, Portland, OR 97221, USA","lat":45.51031684211515,"lng":-122.71608352661133},"related":[17011,44801],"twitterimage":14636,"facebookimage":14138,"twitterdescription":"","edited":"","factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_features"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45164,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16129\/revisions\/45164"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/44801"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}