The elfin has landed: How military aircraft helped a rare butterfly

This story was originally published on our new Medium blog platform

What do frosted elfin butterflies have in common with Blackhawk helicopters?

Both can hover in place, maneuver erratically in flight, and are secured behind locked doors by the New Hampshire Army National Guard.

And if not for the Blackhawks, the elfin there might have remained under the radar.

A male and a female elfin linked up to mate. (Heather Siart)

In 2000, the New Hampshire Army National Guard was preparing to replace its 1970s era UH-1 helicopters (“Hueys”) with modern equipment: nine Blackhawks and a C-12 fixed-wing turboprop plane. But there was a problem. “The existing facility couldn’t support the new aircraft,” explained Arin Mills, conservation specialist for the New Hampshire Army National Guard.

That meant they needed to build a new facility, which demanded more square footage than was available on the state military reservation in Concord.

When the Guard identified a suitable place to build on the corner of the nearby Concord Municipal Airport, they encountered another problem: the parcel contained pine barrens, a rare type of habitat characterized by sandy soil and fire-dependent conifers. Another butterfly of interest, the endangered Karner blue, had been spotted there before.

“As a federal entity, we need to consider impacts to pine-barren species like moths and butterflies,” Mills said.

And so the Guard worked with other federal entities — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for endangered species, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for airports — as well as with New Hampshire Fish and Game and the city of Concord, to land on a solution. The Guard would build a new aviation facility at the municipal airport, and build 15 acres of new pine-barren habitat on the grounds of the state military reservation. The habitat would support the state endangered frosted elfin butterfly, and the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly.

The Army Aviation Support Facility: the building that initiated the consultation leading to the 15-acre habitat restoration project on the state military reservation. Can you spot the Blackhawk helicopter? (N.H. Army National Guard)

It was no small task. “We tore down some barracks, tore up roads, and reconfigured the entire reservation to get to the 15 acres,” Mills said. “Construction was still happening when I started here in 2004, and it wasn’t complete until 2006.” It’s worth the effort for the National Guard. Moving the butterflies toward recovery may lead to less stringent mitigation requirements in the future.

When the heavy equipment was finally hauled away, they broke out the tree spades and started planting: first pitch pines, later lupine, which frosted elfin and Karner blue need to survive. Then they started annual surveys, watching and waiting for both butterflies to arrive.

New recruits

In the meantime, some butterflies had already moved in. Not to the barrens — to the barracks.

At the same time the Guard was looking for a new place to house helicopters, New Hampshire Fish and Game was looking for a new place to house butterflies.

In the 1990s, surveys showed New Hampshire’s population of Karner blue butterflies was experiencing a long-term decline. Scientists feared that without direct intervention the species could disappear from the Concord area, so the state worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to explore the possibility of starting captive-rearing program.

Among the needs was a secure place to raise them.

Cue the Army National Guard. As part of the mitigation plan for the new aircraft facility, the Guard gave New Hampshire Fish and Game funds for 300 acres of habitat restoration, and a 1,600-square-foot space on the state military reservation.

The view in 2003 down the road on the state military reservation that now leads to the captive-rearing facility. (N.H. Army National Guard)

The same view as in the photo above, a decade later. You should notice significantly more pine trees. (N.H. Army National Guard)

“They had an old barracks on the reservation that they were no longer using,” said Heidi Holman, project lead for species programs at New Hampshire Fish and Game. “We put a greenhouse roof on top, and began propagating and releasing butterflies.”

At first the primary emphasis was on Karner blue. To date, more than 30,000 have been released into the wild as a result of New Hampshire’s captive-rearing program. However, the state had also been monitoring frosted elfin periodically since the early 2000s, and had attempted to breed them in captivity as well. “They are very territorial and tricky in captivity,” Holman explained.

But with growing concern about elfin throughout the region, biologists have doubled down. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be reviewing the butterfly’s status in 2023, leaving a small window to determine whether it may need similar federal protection to the Karner blue butterfly.

“Building off many years of experience, techniques, and protocols that we have used to re-establish a population of Karner blue in Concord, we wanted to use our lab to contribute to frosted elfin recovery as well,” Holman said.

I love the smell of lupine in the morning

A sprig of wild blue lupine, which both frosted elfin and Karner blue butterflies depend upon to survive. (Heather Siart)

Now with funding from the Service’s Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program, New Hampshire is helping to fill in some of the blanks about elfin.

“Wing measurements, larval measurements, sexing, what exactly they are eating — our main focus is collecting life history information that hasn’t been collected before,” explained Heather Siart, who was hired by Fish and Game with WSFR funding to spearhead the elfin reconnaissance effort.

While they still haven’t figured out how to get elfin to mate in captivity, they have figured out how to get them to lay eggs. “We use a red Solo cup with one cotton ball soaked with honey, one soaked with nectar, and a sprig of lupine, which spurs them to lay,” Siart said.

From just 15 females collected this spring, they got more than 1,000 eggs, 80 percent of which hatched, 50 percent of which they released back into the wild. “That’s a good hatch rate, and now we have well over 500 that we will overwinter until they emerge in the spring,” Holman said.

A few good elfin

The elfin raised on the military reservation are likely to find good homes nearby, as are their offspring. Last May, more than 70 elfin were captured and marked in a single day at the Concord airport, a high for the species at this site.

More than a record, it’s an indication; the habitat restoration work is paying off. It’s also catching on. Since 2001, the partnership between the state, the Guard, the Service, the FAA, and the city, has expanded to include the neighboring industrial gas company, Praxair, Inc., which has restored habitat and planted lupine on their land too.

A frosted elfin caterpillar on a lupine pod in front of the Joint Force Headquarters on the state military reservation. (N.H. Army National Guard)

Someday, elfin will no longer need to be sheltered in the barracks, but they might be able to live right in its footprint. “It’s standing in the middle of our habitat area,” Mills explained. “When the facility is no longer needed, we’ll tear it down.”

In the meantime, the butterflies are well protected. You need security clearance just to get onto the reservation.

Not to mention elfins’ built-in security system. Just like Blackhawk helicopters, they are camouflaged to blend into their surroundings.

“For a long time, I think frosted elfin were overlooked,” Mills said. “Now you can’t go out on the reservation on any day during flight period and not see one.”

Thanks to coordination and collaboration with public and private partners, more than 185 species in the eastern United States have recovered, been downlisted, or did not need listing under the Endangered Species Act. The effort to conserve at-risk wildlife and recover listed species is led by the Service and state wildlife agencies in partnership with other organizations. Our use of conservation incentives and flexibilities to protect wildlife, reduce regulations and keep working lands working has drawn bipartisan support from Congress.

Saving an ancient fish in modern times

This story was originally published on our new Medium blog platform

 

Surrounded by vast northern Maine wilderness, Big Reed Pond sits peacefully on a mountaintop. A single cabin hides between the conifers that line its banks. The nearest town is 48 miles away.

Cabin owners Igor and Karen Sikorsky operate Bradford Camps, a guiding company that flies anglers and other outdoor enthusiasts to prime, remote fishing spots via their Cessna 172 floatplane.

Around the time that the Sikorskys took over the camp, something started to go very wrong at Big Reed.

“When we took over in ’96, almost everyone went to Big Reed Pond to go fishing — it was so good,” Igor Sikorsky said. “By 1998, two years later, nobody went there because whenever you went there you never caught a fish.”

It was more than just not catching fish. The fish were disappearing.

The Sikorsky’s float plane gliding over Big Reed Pond in the fall. Credit: Maine DIFW

One in particular: the Arctic charr, a fish found in just one state in the Lower 48 — Maine.

Though not quite dinosaurs, charr, also known as blueback trout, were the first fish species to colonize Maine waters when the glaciers receded over present-day North America. They now exist in only 14 lakes and ponds in the state.

Big Reed Pond — one of those lakes — was under threat. Charr had survived thousands of years just to face rainbow smelt, a fish native to some waters in Maine, but illegally introduced into Big Reed Pond. Smelt caused charr numbers to plummet, competing with them for food and feeding on newly hatched charr.

“It was terrible. A large part of the value of this business that we bought was the fact that Reed Pond was a successful fishery,” Sikorsky said. “That was many of our guests’ favorite pond to fish in the whole world.”

Though the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife had been managing charr populations since the 1960s, the threat of rainbow smelt kicked their efforts into high gear, beginning a 10-year process to reclaim Big Reed Pond.

Sunset on Big Reed Pond from the Sikorsky’s cabin. Credit: Maine DIFW

Sunset on Big Reed Pond from the Sikorsky’s cabin. Credit: Maine DIFW

Operation: Reclamation

Frank Frost, fisheries biologist with Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, led the charge against smelt in Big Reed Pond.

He had overseen charr management and conservation since 2000 and was witnessed to the sudden decline of Arctic charr in Big Reed Pond.

At this point, it wasn’t enough to just try to increase charr numbers. Without removing smelt all together, the charr population would inevitably fall again.

Frost and his team decided on a total reset of Big Reed Pond: a reclamation.

Aquatic reclamation involves removing unwanted fish species from a water body, like the illegally introduced smelt, and then restocking it with desired fish species, like native Arctic charr and brook trout. At Big Reed the removal process involved a plant-based product called Rotenone, which impacts the way that fish use oxygen in the water.

Before biologists eradicated the smelt and restored the pond fishery, they had to make sure there would be enough charr to support a healthy population. The state partnered with a local hatchery to rear charr for later reintroduction.

But even this first step posed challenges. They needed to catch as many of the few remaining charr as possible to begin the rearing process.

It took four years. And in all that time, they were able to catch only 14.

Maine state biologists toil to catch charr for captive rearing. Credit: Maine DIFW

The second challenge was transportation.

The long hike up to the pond cuts through the largest old growth forest in New England and the fish wouldn’t survive the long trek out.

“Time was of the essence,” Sikorsky said.

So they forewent the trail and took to the sky.

Aided by helicopters from the Maine Army National Guard and the Sikorsky’s floatplane, those lone 14, the sole future of charr in Big Reed, were flown to the hatchery where they would reside while biologists cleared the pond of the unwelcome visitors.

“We actually didn’t lose a single fish in the flying process,” Sikorsky said.

Then, in October 2010, it was finally time to reclaim Big Reed. Thousands of pounds of gear, Rotenone, state staff and volunteers were flown in.

Maine Air Gaurd Black Hawk helicopters transporting crucial supplies to the pond. Credit: Maine DIFW

Maine Air Gaurd Black Hawk helicopters transporting crucial supplies to the pond. Credit: Maine DIFW

It took several days. State biologists needed to eradicate rainbow smelt from every inch of Big Reed Pond.

And they did. Since the reclamation, smelt have not been found at Big Reed Pond.

The following summer, hundreds of hatchery-raised charr, with direct bloodlines from Big Reed, were reintroduced to the pond. This continued for three consecutive years in hopes of carrying on the legacy of this ancient fish by producing a wild charr spawn.

It Takes a Village

The large-scale operation came with a lot of uncertainty — as well as a lot of partners to ensure its success.

Frost noted the important roles of Bradford Camps, the University of Maine, The Nature Conservancy, as well as the Maine Army Aviation Support Facility in Bangor and the Presque Isle High School Aquaculture Facility. Some funding for hatchery efforts came from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund.

“With these really complex, long term projects, you just can’t stand alone,“ Frost said.

Critical funding for this project came through the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Fund administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These funds support state fish and wildlife agency partners to restore and manage sport fish for the benefit of the public, including rare sport fish species like the Arctic charr.

“The project wouldn’t have happened without Sport Fish funds,” said Peter Bourque, former Director of Fisheries for Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

These funds are generated in part through a tax on fishing equipment and boating fuels, and help to support sportfish management and restoration throughout the country.

“It was money well spent by the anglers who bought their fishing rods,” Sikorsky said.

In recognition of the restoration, the American Fisheries Society presented the department and Maine DIFW fisheries biologist Frank Frost with their annual Sport Fish Restoration Outstanding Project award in 2017.

Igor Sikorsky shows off hatchery raised charr before depositing them into Big Reed Pond. Credit: Maine DIFW

“When you have the benefit of collaboration and planning, you have more control over the outcome,” said Francis Brautigam, the current DIFW Director of Fisheries. “Proactive conservation allows for out-of-the-box thinking, and the ability to pursue strategic and collaborative solutions to complex issues.”

The outcome was a win for wildlife and people. A species once destined for the federal endangered species list was determined to be stable — even increasing.

Faith, Reward, and Relief

Last summer, success materialized at Big Reed.

Frost and his son, Noah, were out on the water on a warm June day, pulling in nets, looking for evidence that charr had successfully reproduced in Big Reed. Then they spotted something.

“I knew it was a wild fish as soon as it came out of the water,” Frost said.

Small, about 10 inches, pale silver with a tell-tale blue back, and — most importantly — hatched naturally in Big Reed, this charr was a symbol of triumph.

Frank Frost surveying for wild spawned charr and coming up successful. Credit: Maine DIFW

Frank Frost surveying for wild spawned charr and coming up successful. Credit: Maine DIFW

After so much time away from home while working at Big Reed, Frost recounted how meaningful it was to have his son with him that day. Noah recently started the same undergraduate program Frost completed 30 years prior, carrying on the family legacy: fisheries biology, at the University of Maine.

“I didn’t have to explain how important this fish was; he knew,” Frost said.

 

The Arctic charr is one of more than 185 fish, wildlife and plants in the eastern U.S. that have recovered, been downlisted, or did not need listing under the Endangered Species Act, thanks to coordination with public and private partners. The effort to conserve at-risk wildlife and recover listed species is led by the Service and state wildlife agencies in partnership with other organizations. Our use of conservation incentives and flexibilities to protect wildlife, reduce regulations and keep working lands working has drawn bipartisan support from Congress.

Connecting students with their watershed, one trout at a time

Have you ever held a juvenile brook trout in your hand?

Up until last week my answer to that would have been no.

This week was the huge culmination of work going on in K-12 classrooms across the country.

Trout in the Classroom is an environmental education program in which students in grades K-12 get the chance to raise trout from eggs to fry (a juvenile fish).

5th graders assessing habitat quality prior to release – USFWS

These students are responsible for caring for the fish, monitoring tank water quality, and learning about stream habitats.

This truly unique program fosters a conservation ethic and provides a firsthand look and appreciation for water resources and all those who depend on them.

Most programs end the school year by releasing their trout in a state-approved stream near their school or within a nearby watershed.

Selected area for release, Virgil Creek in Dryden, NY – USFWS

During the year, each teacher tailors the program to fit his or her curricular needs and therefore, each program is unique. This in turn provides younger generations with new skills and knowledge to help ensure healthy waterways and robust trout populations in the future.

The eastern brook trout is often regarded as an aquatic symbol of fresh, clean water. Water quality issues and loss of habitat have contributed to decline of this species over time.

Partners, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are actively pursuing projects to identify barriers to fish passage, open up more waterways to improve aquatic connectivity in the state, and implement restoration and habitat improvement projects to support sustainable brook trout populations.

Biologist Justin Ecret evaluating a white sucker fish after an E-fishing demo – USFWS

Being the State fish of New York, brook trout have a long history of being a part of the complex waterways of the State.

Trout in the Classroom offers the opportunity for students to get their feet wet, literally, in the world of wildlife and environmental conservation.

The actions taken to promote diverse fisheries and help conserve a species that needs our help are just a few of the larger rewards students gain from participating in a course like this.

The goals for this project stem from a place of stewardship.

Classroom aquariums provide a direct platform for hands-on learning that can enhance and engage students in not only environmental science and mathematics, but social sciences, fine arts, and physical education.

I spoke with a few students and this is what they had to say about the project,

“Watching the fish get bigger was fun. We would come in to class, check on them, make sure they looked healthy, and kept their water clean. It’s exciting to release them, but I will miss them.”

The students releasing the brook trout they raised! USFWS

Trout in the Classroom fosters sensitivity about the importance of our shared water resources by engaging students directly. The more we can bring that level of excitement to students the more they can grow to be lifelong proponents of environmental stewardship and conservation.