Miami Blue press release

[Anne Kilmer]

Forgive the cross-posting.
Please spread this around freely.
Anne Kilmer
Vice-Chairman/Operations
MBBRP

International conservation effort focuses on Florida butterfly.

The state's chief wildlife officer has issued an emergency 
endangered-species protection order for the Miami Blue, a tiny butterfly 
confined to a single island in the Florida Keys. Kenneth Haddad, 
executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 
Commission, signed the order Tuesday (Dec. 10, 2002).
  Once common in South Florida, the Miami Blue is now so rare that most 
butterfliers younger than 30 have never seen one. A tiny colony in the 
Keys may be the last remnants of this once-thriving species, a little 
blue butterfly no larger than a quarter.
Indeed, the butterfly was believed to be lost until it was spotted by 
butterfly expert Jane Ruffin in the Keys, confirmed by Jeffrey 
Glassberg, president of the North American Butterfly Association, and 
announced in spring, 2000.
Glassberg and entomologist Mark Salvato requested emergency listing for 
the Miami Blue on an emergency basis, and in December, 2001, the U.S 
Fish and Wildlife Service asked for community input and involvement in 
the decision on what action should be taken to protect this rare insect.
Immediately a grassroots coalition started to form; butterfly gardeners, 
scientific and amateur butterfly collectors and other lepidopterists, 
arborists and commercial butterfly breeders, NABA members,  nature 
centers and parks departments, volunteers and professionals, combining 
their expertise and, now, at last, working together as the Miami Blue 
Butterfly Restoration Project  to formulate a plan to restore habitat, 
study the Miami Blue and the other endangered insects of Florida, and 
foster community involvement in the restoration efforts.
Leaders in the first phase included Bob Kelley of the Miami Blue NABA 
Chapter, and John Calhoun, who with Jeffrey Slotten and Mark H. Salvato 
had researched the Tropical Blues in Florida, and whose paper, published 
in Holarctic Lepidoptera, provided many useful insights on the Blues. 
Environmentalist Bob Parcelles Jr. worked with Ron Gatrelle of The 
International Lepidoptera Survey to gather scientists from around the 
world to work together to guide the restoration of this tiny butterfly.
When the International Butterfly Breeders Association agreed to take 
part, the project gained momentum, with the possibility of launching a 
captive breeding program, providing seeds for host plants, working with 
schools and guiding community involvement.
Success would mean hope for the survival of endangered butterflies 
everywhere, as this very local project could be a prototype. Failure was 
unthinkable, and the experts feared to act, and feared to delay action.
A project so delicate, so difficult, needed leadership at an 
unprecedented level of expertise. Captive rearing and habitat 
restoration was necessary, but the population was low, the site 
vulnerable to storms, and the weedy host plants in danger of removal 
during normal clean-up activities.
Dr. Thomas Emmel, of the University of Florida, whose efforts for the 
Schaus Swallowtail have drawn worldwide attention, has agreed to take on 
the Miami Blue and its army of well-wishers, direct their efforts and 
... while they're at it .. rescue Florida's other rare butterflies.
Dr. Emmel said: "The MBBRP, NABA, and other volunteer groups and 
individuals were the ones to bring this issue of the survival of the 
Miami Blue to public and official attention. Without that concern for 
the past two years, and without Jeffrey Glassberg petitioning its 
emergency listing by USFWS, the butterfly's last significant colony 
would have very likely winked out of existence with no notice, and the 
earth would be a little poorer in biodiversity and other values that we 
all treasure.

"Our project involvement at the University of Florida came much more 
recently than MBBRP and NABA in this saga. In fact, we were not 
approached until late April of this year (2002) by the U.S. Fish & 
Wildlife Service, who wanted a previously uninvolved research group to 
take an unbiased look at the situation and submit a proposal for 
starting status surveys and gathering other basic biological data. We 
submitted a USFWS proposal on April 29th and the first funds for 
fieldwork were received September 5th, but like the MBBRP and NABA, we 
rapidly realized the urgency of the situation for the very survival of 
the Miami Blue, and started fieldwork in May-August on our own resources."

Dr. Emmel added, "Certainly, State of Florida listing of the Miami Blue 
as an Endangered Species (which is to take place Dec. 5) will bring into 
play an additional level of protection and also of permitting 
requirements. But the locations of the prime colonies within State Park 
protection already requires virtually all of these permitting steps 
anyway for work on the Miami Blue. And both State Park and State 
Endangered Species levels of protection will not interfere with 
observational studies or even the captive breeding project. They will, 
however, protect against uncontrolled acts such as mosquito control 
spraying, destruction of host plants, etc., which are possible mortality 
factors that can occur prior to Endangered Species classification."
"We expect to have at least seven staff from the McGuire Center for 
Lepidoptera and the University of Florida on Bahia Honda on the 14th: 
Dr. Jaret C. Daniels (Assistant Director for Research, McGuire Center, 
and project leader for the UF Miami Blue efforts), Dr. Andrei Sourakov 
(expert on the West Indies butterfly fauna and one of the noted 
taxonomists asked by USFWS to look at the taxonomic status of the Miami 
Blues on Bahia Honda), Dr. Thomas C. Emmel (Director, McGuire Center), 
Peter J. Eliazar (Senior Biological Scientist, UF and McGuire Center), 
J. Akers Pence (doctoral graduate student, lycaenid conservation 
biology), James B. Schlachta (McGuire Center Project Manager), Steven D. 
Schlachta (Boender Endangered Species Laboratory, UF), and possibly 
Anthony J. Camerino (UF plant pathologist, McGuire Center 
horticulturist).   They will be available to the public there on the 
14th as resource people in their respective fields of expertise, 
pertaining to the biology of the Miami Blue, its butterfly relatives, 
its foodplants and parasites/symbionts, etc.  Hopefully, the UF 
representatives will have the opportunity to make some public statements 
on progress with the planned captive propagation colony and other 
up-to-the-minute results."
The army now available to Dr. Emmel will include school children 
throughout Florida, whose schoolyard research projects on restoring 
habitat and rearing rare butterflies will be guided by lepidopterists as 
far away as Africa, as well as the butterfly gardeners next door.

Volunteers will be encouraged to help by rearing host plants and nectar 
plants, and will work with Master Gardeners trained by the University of 
Florida to identify neighborhoods and parks where plantings can be 
arranged to restore habitat for wildlife.
Commercial breeders and other lepidopterists will help raise host plants 
and butterflies, design schoolyard programs to raise rare butterflies, 
provide seeds and cuttings, and mentor students eager to learn more.
Arborists and foresters will be trained to spot the host plants for rare 
butterflies, and to watch for the butterflies themselves.  Botanical 
gardens will display host plants and, where possible, the butterflies 
themselves.
Nature centers will make information available to volunteers, exhibit 
host plants and butterfly specimens, and help coordinate the program. 
Scientific findings at the cutting edge will be published on the 
project's web page, available to subscribers at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MBBRP/join

or email this address
MBBRP-subscribe at yahoogroups.com

OPTIONAL CUT

"The Miami Blue Butterfly, Cyclargus thomasi bethunebakeri, was 
previously known as Hemiargus thomasi bethunebakeri. It is a subspecies 
of the Caribbean Blue, and others, very similar, can be found in the 
Virgin Islands and perhaps in Cuba. It's about an inch wide, wingtip to 
wingtip, and is very difficult to distinguish from such common blue 
butterflies as the Cassius Blue and Ceraunus Blue."
These are common in the areas where the Miami Blue was once found, and 
therefore butterfly watchers did not notice the missing species until it 
was almost too late. Now, with trained observers in the field, more 
colonies may be found or established throughout South Florida.
The host plants favored by the Miami Blue include Balloon Vine, 
Cardiospermum spp., and Gray Nickerbean, Caesalpinea bonduc, both plants 
that groundskeepers tend to remove or keep in check. The butterfly may 
also use various weedy legumes, and the science team will offer various 
plants for egg-laying, and study the results.
The reason for the butterfly's disappearance is still a puzzle. The 
routine removal of the host plants and the invasion of the Imported Fire 
Ant, Solenopsis invicta, may be a factor. The butterfly is vulnerable to 
mosquito adulticides, and the Carpenter ant that tends the butterfly 
larva, a Camponotus species, is also killed by pesticides.
Attempts to restore the butterfly to suitable habitat will be closely 
monitored and these factors will be eliminated where possible.




 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl