Not far from the Concord Municipal Airport, between a post office and a dance gym, sits a 28-acre field that’s been restored as a refuge for an endangered species of butterfly.
Karner blue butterflies have long made parts of New Hampshire, including Concord, their home. But Heidi Holman, a Wildlife Biologist at New Hampshire Fish and Game, said their population has dwindled in recent years due to climate change and land development.
Over the last two decades, the New Hampshire Army National Guard, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have worked together to restore the land in Concord to serve as a natural habitat for the small, blue butterflies. The agencies recently gathered on May 19, the 50th anniversary of Endangered Species Day, to celebrate how their efforts have helped more than 35,000 Karner blue butterflies to flourish.
Those restoration efforts, Holman said, include planting lupine flowers – which are important to the butterflies’ survival, as they eat and lay their eggs in them.
The area is naturally abundant with lupine flowers, but Holman and others have been making sure the buds have a similar environment to their natural habitat so they can survive. Controlled fires help clear the fallen leaves, twigs and debris. Lupine flowers need a dry climate and prosper on sunny slopes.
“Plants like lupines, when their seed expels and hits the sand, that's when it germinates the best,” Holman said during a recent tour.
Land development around the Karner Blue Butterfly Easement paved over some of the natural topography and ecosystem that allowed both lupine and Karner blue butterflies to survive. The restoration effort has tried to bring back some of those natural elements.
“The slopes and the topographies, the accuracy of the habitat – it's been an anchor for the population over time,” Holman said.
Other features of this spot in Concord have been vital to helping the Karner blues survive. The fields at the neighboring airport have been a good landing for Karner blue butterflies. Greenhouses on the New Hampshire Army National Guard base have offered space where the butterflies are protected, mated and fed the plants they survive on.
Frosted Elfins, another type of butterfly, have also been thriving at the Concord sanctuary. They enjoy lupine flowers, too.
As lupine flowers begin to bloom in the next few weeks, Holman said people should start spotting more Karner blues.
