A tiny butterfly species native to the Midwest has been brought back from the brink of extinction, researchers say.
The poweshiek skipperling — an inch-long fuzzy species, brown with orange highlights — used to be found in several Midwestern states and Canadian provinces but by 2022 researchers only found nine of them in the U.S.
Nick Haddad, a professor of integrated biology at Michigan State University's Kellogg Biological Station, is on a team that's raising the butterflies in captivity at the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids for release into the wild. He said Michigan is a hotspot for rare butterflies.
"Our work is to preserve and restore and recover the species that have been in rapid decline," Haddad said. "As areas are restored where they used to be, we can release them back out."
This effort combines biology scientists and conservation specialists who have worked with the zoo to create a space accommodating of the species. Michigan's Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota Zoo, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are also involved.
The project began in 2021 and brought those nine known wild skipperlings up to 1,300 and counting.
"Through that partnership we've been able to not just just keep butterflies in captivity, but grow captive populations at an enormous rate," he said. "That's not an easy task, to have butterflies in a cage, male and female, and actually get them to breed."
Because the project has been able to raise reproduction rates so much, it had a captive population breeding while they release others into the wild. The wild butterflies also lay eggs so the population grows in both groups. Recently, the wild butterfly populations finally exceeded those in captivity.
"Just to put this in context, in nature, a population that is sustaining, we'd expect one male and female that are reproducing to create around one male and one female," he said. "That's a sustaining population, it's not growing or shrinking. But in captivity we don't have natural, harsh environmental conditions. We can produce thousands of new adults with a couple dozen adults."
He said the tiny butterflies used to have hundreds of populations, but by the start of the project, there were only three: One in Manitoba, Canada and two in Southeast Michigan.
"My suspicion is mainly because of new classes and uses of toxic insecticides," he said, but habitat loss is another main reason for their decline.
He said reduced use of those insecticides is necessary for the program to continue working.
"We have now established the restoration sites and context where we can be successful," he said. "But that is still just a limited part of the butterflies former range. We have the tools to act both by reducing insecticides and then by doing the conservation of habitat. I do think it can be done."
Butterfly populations across the board have decreased 25% in the last 20 years. Other pollinators have also seen decreased populations.
Butterflies are important in keeping plant communities alive, helping them reproduce through pollination.
Haddad said there is also a moral cost of driving a species out of existence.
"There is an ethical obligation, and I think others agree, that we shouldn't be the cause of their total loss, their extinction," he said. "So we're putting in the efforts for conservation."
The group is looking to do the same kind of work for another endangered butterfly species, the Mitchell's Satyr butterfly, and more after that.
He said the program does show how putting the effort in can make a huge difference.
"If we think about the time span of 25 years to see this rapid decline to near extinction, well, to get them on the right track even at a low level after five years is really encouraging," he said. "And so hopefully a decade from now or two decades from now, we'll see the population thriving across the landscape."
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