Office of the Secretary

For Immediate Release: September 27, 1999

Contact: Tim Ahern (202)-208-5089
Joan Guilfoyle (612)-810-6797

The endangered Karner blue butterfly, a beautiful but fragile insect whose survival depends on patches of wild blue lupine, will be protected by the first-ever statewide conservation agreement under the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced Monday.

The agreement, known as a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), will protect the butterfly's habitat on more than 260,000 acres in Wisconsin while permitting landowners, businesses and governments to continue to continue a variety of activities.

"This is the first comprehensive statewide Habitat Conservation Plan and the most inclusive agreement of its kind in the country," Babbitt said at a signing ceremony at Sandhill Wildlife Area in Babcock, Wisconsin. "It is an excellent example of how the flexibility of the Endangered Species Act can promote regional habitat conservation planning by states and local governments and is a model for what other states and their partners might consider."

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary George Meyer signed the Implementing Agreement, part of the HCP process, on behalf of the state.

"This is as fine an example of a public-private ecosystem management partnership as we've yet produced," Meyer said. "The department reorganized its management structure and focus in 1995 to reflect the desirability of partnerships to accomplish landscape-scale ecosystem management projects. This agreement hits that goal. Cooperation and involvement of all the partners certainly were key to the successful conclusion of this agreement."

A Habitat Conservation Plan provides for protection of endangered species while allowing economic development to continue. Under an HCP, landowners may "take" individual endangered species when the effects of the taking are mitigated and minimized by conservation measures. The Endangered Species Act defines "take" as either the direct killing, harming or harassment of an animal, or the destruction of its habitat.

Currently, there are more than 250 HCPs in effect nationwide and more than 200 under development.
The Karner blue butterfly HCP was developed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Interior

Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in conjunction with a group of 26 private and public partners, including county and industrial forest owners, utility companies, three state agencies, conservation organizations, and private landowners.

"Most HCPs involve localized areas with only one or a few partners," said Babbitt. "What is unique about Wisconsin's HCP is that it is statewide in scope and involves 26 partners working across an extensive landscape. These partners represent most of the significant private and public landowners within the Wisconsin range of the Karner blue butterfly and a number of interest groups without property or other assets at stake."

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be issued an incidental take permit for the butterfly. Then, each partner will receive incidental take privileges under the purview of the state agency. The partners will also have to agree to plans that will be reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The HCP includes conservation measures such as fall mowing and herbicide applications to protect lupine and nectar plants used by the butterflies, creation of corridors between Karner blue butterfly sites, and maintenance of a shifting mosaic of forest habitat to maintain suitable habitat for the butterfly throughout the landscape.

"Partners will continue with normal activities such as mowing, burning, herbicide application, and forestry practices in such a way as to avoid or minimize hazards to the Karner blue butterfly," said Dave Lentz, Winsconsin's Karner butterfly coordinator. "The agreement also provides for changes in management activities as knowledge is gained through the monitoring program."

Many other rare species require similar habitat to the Karner blue butterfly and will benefit from the conservation efforts taken under the HCP. These include animals such as the Kirtland's warbler, slender glass lizard, eastern massasauga rattlesnake, and wood turtle and plants such as the regal fritillary, yellow gentian, and Hill's thistle.

The Karner is a small, mostly blue butterfly with a wingspan of about one inch. While most animal species rely on a stable habitat, Karner blue butterflies depend on disturbance of their habitat. In its early life as a caterpillar, the Karner eats only the leaves of the wild blue lupine which grow in sandy oak savanna and pine barrens. This habitat has declined significantly over the last 20 to 30 years because of development, agriculture and lack of fire, which is needed to maintain it.

The Karner blue was listed as endangered in 1992. Historically, it lived in a geographic band from eastern Minnesota Maine. In Wisconsin, the butterfly lives in utility and roadway rights of way, abandoned agricultural fields, forest lands, military training areas and barrens, savannas, and prairies which support wild lupine plants.

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