Just a couple years ago, the state butterfly had all but disappeared from New Hampshire. The Karner blue thrived in pine barrens from Nashua to Canterbury, but development and overgrown pine forests reduced its habitat. Efforts to save the tiny, silver-blue butterfly are finally showing results. But as New Hampshire Public Radio's Raquel Maria Dillon reports, funding for the habitat restoration program is being held up.
It's become an annual field trip for students at Concord public schools – a visit to the pine barrens to plant wild lupine.
SOUND :?? Rambunctious kids planting…
TEACHER :08 Careful where you're stepping, check the ground!
These 4-graders from Conant School grew wild lupine from seed, and now they're planting them in the wild.
2BOYS :15 The Karner blue butterfly is almost instinct.
GIRL EX-tinct!
2BOYS Whatever! He lives in the pine barrens. We're planting to help it. And a few of them are coming back. And there's not enough left.
Back in their classroom, Ryan Manning and Steven Muzzy cultivated two tiny lupine sprouts in an empty orange juice container. They're eager to show off what they learned in class: that this pine barren isn't so barren, and Karner blue caterpillars need lupine to survive...
2BOYS :15 um, it's a lupine and they eat lupines. so they wiped all the lupines out and put shopping malls and stuff. we're planting lupines here so the Karner blue butterfly comes back. Yeah.
The boys have the basic ecology right, but it's not just shopping malls that threaten the Karner blue's habitat. The pine barrens are overgrown here – and throughout New England. Wild lupine can't grow under a dense canopy of pitch pines and the Karner blues have suffered. But at this restoration site, the lupine plants that students planted last year are sending up brilliant purple flowers.
FULLER :04 everywhere you see a flag there's something planted.
Department of Fish and Game Biologist Steve Fuller is in charge of the habitat restoration program. He directs tree removal, plant propagation, and the captive breeding of Karner blues. He found Karner blue eggs on plants right here last Fall, next to the Concord Airport runway. It's proof that the program is working.
FULLER :18 The eggs we found were actually on plants that were planted by children, which was really great. This spring those eggs actually survived the winter and hatched out and turned into adult butterflies which we're seeing now, which the children actually saw today. I'm sorry, I think I'm seeing a female Karner right here….
Fuller is easily distracted – any kind of silvery fluttering on the ground attracts his attention.
FULLER :06 I'm sorry. hehe
RAQUEL A different kind of butterfly?
FULLER (disappointed) it was a frosted elfin which is also a state-protected butterfly.
The Karner blue butterfly's delicate pine barren habitat is being restored thanks to a equally delicate agreement among several different agencies and organizations.
FULLER :13 DRED, NH Fish and Game, US Fish and Wildlife Service, FAA, NH DOT, the City of Concord and the Army National Guard.
Most of the program's funding comes from the New Hampshire Army National Guard, which wanted to build a hangar for its new Blackhawk helicopter on 27 acres of key Karner blue habitat. To mitigate for that construction, the Guard agreed to provide space in an army barracks where the tiny blue butterflies are raised in captivity, and to pay for the habitat restoration nearby. The federal government covers the cost – 75-thousand dollars this year – and the Guard contracts with the state Fish and Game Department to manage the habitat restoration for 10 years.
AMARAL :07 this program has been working really well for 3 years, this would have been 4th year. When basically agreement was broken.
Mike Amaral is with the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service. He says the Governor is holding up the funding for the program. Like all state contracts, it needs to be approved by the Governor and Council, even though the $75 thousand dollars comes entirely from the federal government. Executive Councilor Peter Spaulding says the Council has little say in the matter, because the Governor controls the agenda.
SPAULDING :12 The contracts came to Governor and Council agenda and Governor Benson removed from agenda, stating (best as I could recall), that he didn't think it was a wise expenditure of money.
If the state doesn't sign off on the federal money, the entire mitigation deal is at risk. Mike Amaral says the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service decided that the Karner blue would not be affected by the hangar – as long as nearby habitat was restored. If the money for that mitigation is not forthcoming, Fish and Wildlife can reevaluate the agreement.
AMARAL :18 the hangar is nearly complete. So the timing of these things is horrible. The habitat's been taken. If I didn't understand all the background, I could take a very cynical view and say the development interests got what they wanted and now they're sticking it to us. Because there's no way to get the habitat back.
Back out at the Airport, biologist Steve Fuller says the funding delay is affecting his project at a critical time.
FULLER :10 I have 6 pounds of lupine seed that needs to be planted weeks ago and I just haven't had the resources to do it.
Fuller is impatient: there's brush to clear, wild lupine to irrigate, fire breaks to prepare, and most importantly, a few dozen elusive and endangered butterflies to be counted.
FULLER :13 but we can't do that right now. It's a narrow window of time because of the brief lifespan of these creatures. The adult form lives for about 2 weeks.
Just last Friday, a few lucky 4th graders saw a Karner blue, and watched a Fish and Game worker tag a female.
AMBI :?? kids ask Fuller questions…
Fuller takes questions from the school kids and points to the purple cones of lupine flowers to show them says their help makes a difference. He just hopes the funding comes through soon, so he can irrigate the carefully nurtured wild lupine that they planted.
A spokesman for the New Hampshire National Guard says they don't want to put the agreement at risk. They've submitted the request to the state, and the federal money is forthcoming – as soon as the Governor brings it before the Council.
For NHPR News, I'm RMD.
AMBI FULLER talking to kids
