Wisconsin Landowners Can Now Plant for Endangered Butterflies

Posted: 27-Aug-2003; Updated: 08-Aug-2006

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In the last quarter-century, the endangered Karner blue butterfly has declined by 90%. Loss of dry prairie, pine and oak barrens, oak savannah and other prairie habitat is the primary cause for its disappearance. (Photo: J&K Hollingsworth/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

A new seed mix offers Wisconsin landowners the opportunity not only to restore native prairie habitat but also help the endangered Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) and gain extra ranking points when vying for U.S. Department of Agriculture Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) funding.

The Karner blue is a postage-stamp-sized butterfly that once ranged in a narrow band from the eastern edge of Minnesota, across the Great Lake states, into New England as far as Maine. It has declined by 99%, with 90% vanishing in the last quarter-century, primarily because of the loss of dry prairie, oak savannah, pine and oak barrens, and other prairie habitats. Although the Wisconsin Karner blue butterfly population is the largest of any state in its historic range, the butterfly has lost all but less than 0.02% of its habitat.

Demand for CRP monies regularly exceeds available funding, and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) ranks and selects potential projects based on conservation practices landowners choose from FSA's list. Landowner applicants who propose CP25 practices, which target rare and declining habitats, gain 50 points. CP25 seed mixes are a way to restore native plants and are now in use in several states.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) state agronomist and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Karner blue butterfly specialist selected 17 grasses and forbs (non-grass herbaceous plants) for the Karner blue mix. A crucial component of the mix is wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), the only plant upon which the butterfly's larvae will feed and thus essential for the survival of the species. Other flowering plants in the mix provide nectar for adult Karner blues.

To promote the new seed mix, CCI's wildlife ecologist Regina Hirsch pooled her scientific background with CCI consultant Tom Thrall's expertise from his years as an NRCS employee. The two worked with FSA, NRCS, FWS and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to get the new ranking criteria and Karner blue butterfly information out to the qualifying counties in time for FY2003 CRP sign-up.

The Karner blue butterfly seed mix is now available to landowners in 13 counties of Wisconsin, where native habitats (e.g., oak and pine barrens and oak savannah) and the Karner blue once were part of the landscape. Though somewhat more expensive than non-CP25 seed mixes, the new mix offers landowners the opportunity to benefit an endangered butterfly and a suite of other grassland birds and reptiles, restore declining habitats and gain extra ranking points for CRP funding.

Though Karner blues are a federally listed endangered species, all Wisconsin agricultural landowners are covered by a state-held permit that ensures they will be free to use their land as they wish for private and agricultural uses when their CRP contract expires. Landowners interested in the Karner blue seed mix for future CRP sign-ups should contact their local FSA office.

Regina Hirsch
Wildlife Ecologist
Environmental Defense

Tom Thrall
Conservation Consultant
Center for Conservation Incentives

Margaret McMillan
Endangered Species Specialist
Environmental Defense