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May 20th, 2006 - 17:09:21
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Voices of the Northwest
Though I've been a Eugenean for 27 years, my North Carolina roots brought to mind the story of the Coast Guard cutter dispatched to take a very pregnant woman from Ocracoke, a barrier island, 100 miles up the Atlantic coast to a hospital. Seasick, homesick, cold and wet, she made it. Later, babe in arms, she confided in the Elizabethan English-flavored Outer Banks accent: "If Oi'd knew'd then what Oi knew'd now, Oi'd stayed home and had my bye-bee in bed!"
So it is with Fender's blue butterfly, placed on the federal endangered species list in 1999. Though this quite small animal is found in a few other sites in the Willamette Valley, west Eugene is home to more than half of the known Fender's blue butterflies in the world. Several years ago, Congress designated wetlands as a national resource not to be filled, dammed or diked without compelling cause or permit. Just in time, as only one-thousandth of Oregon's wetlands prairie is left. In west Eugene, a wetlands mitigation banking system has struck a compromise between development pressure and the enterprise zone on the one hand, and protection of our last local remnant wetlands prairie on the other.
Enter Kincaid's lupine, federally listed as a threatened species, and the host plant for Fender's blue butterfly. Kincaid's lupine lives on slightly higher ground than the wetlands prairie floor. Like wetlands prairie, upland prairie was abundant in the pre-agricultural Willamette Valley, and is down to less than one-thousandth of its former presence.
In west Eugene, a very few upland prairie patches stretch in a stepping-stone arc between The Nature Conservancy preserve near Bailey Hill and Gimple Hill roads to Fern Ridge Reservoir. The several Kincaid's lupine sites, only some of which support Fenders, act as a DNA highway for this butterfly gene transfer. Fender's ability to find a neighboring patch of lupine on this stepping-stone path and a mate is at the heart of their survival.
Will sufficient genetic diversity be maintained, or will this be an arc of extinction?
Our studies, submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in response to its December 2005 recommendations for critical habitat, indicate both Kincaid's lupine and Fender's blue butterfly need more sites identified as critical habitat if these species are to recover.
You might think these two linked species, which are wholly dependent on upland prairie, would have the strongest protections on publicly held city, state, or most assuredly, federally protected land. Unfortunately, Fender's, this one-inch wingspread, flitting little "here-there-and-gone" being, is disappearing before our eyes.
Development in west Eugene, sanctioned by the state of Oregon and allowed by the city in its enterprise zone, is not planning for protection or restoration of the lupine and butterfly. A wetlands education center planned for city land near Danebo Avenue and West 11th Avenue is intended to increase appreciation for vanishing wetlands. Ironically, though, the site is mapped as upland prairie, and the center's 12 buildings would occupy a potentially critical stepping-stone for Fender's blue butterfly. The proposed West Eugene Parkway is also slated to be built on and adjacent to upland prairie, and would cut across Fender's "DNA highway."
Benton County recently was granted more than half a million federal dollars to create a local partnership among public and private stakeholders leading toward protections for Fender's blue butterfly, Kincaid's lupine and several other endangered species. This planning work is to be done in advance of anticipated development.
Can creative, durable solutions for our own west Eugene area be found?
We would like to say, in the manner of that brave mother of Ocracoke: "If we knew then what we know now, we'd help Fender's blue butterfly find a bed on Kincaid's lupine in upland prairie!"
(We will tell this and more of the fascinating story of this dainty and endangered butterfly. We will recognize some local heroes who are using shovels and research to stand up for these small blue beings. Come join us for these presentations at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 4, 2006 at the Eugene Water and Electric Board community room.)
John Allcott is a physician and president of Preferred Futures, a group working to create economic and ecological balance with social equity in the southern Willamette Valley.
This article also appeared in The Register-Guard, Wednesday, May 3, 2006.
(You may contact John Allcott at Preferred Futures by e-mailing him at pffbb@yahoo.com about protecting Fender's Blues. You may sign up with E-scrip ( http://www.Escrip.com) and choose the Preferred Futures - Fenders Blue Butterfly project for your credit cards.)
Also see Lois Barton's article at WxNW.org:
The Sunnyside of Spencer Butte: Fender's Blues, a Nine Day Wonder
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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