Past of the West

Tacoma Link Streetcar

So this is a piece of good news that I have a small stake in. The Oregon silverspot butterfly (Speryeria zerene hippolyta) once flew along the coast from San Mateo County in California to my stomping grounds up here on the Long Beach Peninsula in extreme southwest Washington. As with many herbivorous insects, the caterpillar of this species has a very limited diet--in fact, the only thing it can eat is the leaves of the early blue violet (Viola adunca). The violets grow in coastal meadows where they get plenty of sun; unfortunately, due to fire suppression and development, most of these meadows are either heavily damaged or no longer exist. And no violets means no butterflies.

Today, the last wild populations include four sites in Oregon and one in Northern California. Over the past few decades conservationists have been working to protect and restore coastal meadows, and both the Oregon Zoo in Portland and the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle have active breeding programs for Oregon silverspots. The caterpillars are raised in captivity, and then when they pupate they are placed in suitable release sites. Some of these are in established populations, but they have also more recently been reintroduced to parts of their historic range where they had been extirpated, such as Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge and Saddle Mountain in Oregon.

This latest release is the largest at Saddle Mountain, with over 2000 silverspot pupae being released there. It's also the site closest to where I am--maybe fifty miles away as the butterfly soars--and people here have been preparing for years for either a planned release or the natural dispersal of butterflies. Willapa National Wildlife Refuge has been engaged in multiple habitat restoration projects over the years, and this includes a restored meadow with a large patch of early blue violets. The farm owned by my friends that I live on also has extensive early blue violet plantings, and there's also a commercial native plant nursery on site that includes the violets as part of their seasonal offerings.

"The rich are good people deep down"