JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD — An un-developed stretch of native prairie in south Puget Sound offers one of the few habitats in the world where a 2-inch butterfly thrives.
It is also the main artillery impact range for Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
The Army’s Stryker combat brigade and other troops regularly practice military maneuvers and live-fire training on acres of scenic, open grassland where a small population of Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly feed on nectar of native blooms, mate and lay eggs.
The butterfly’s listing as a federal endangered species in the fall “has the potential to cause major restrictions on training,” said Jeffrey Foster, an ecologist at the military installation.
That has the Army working to boost the numbers of butterflies, once found at more than 70 sites in Puget Sound, Oregon and British Columbia but are now reduced to 14 sites. The effort mirrors others by the Army at installations around the country. At JBLM, 44 miles south of Seattle, the program is helping not only the Taylor’s checkerspot, but the streaked horned lark and Mazama pocket gopher.
In October, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said the Taylor’s checkerspot was in danger of becoming extinct and designated nearly 2,000 acres in Clallam County, Puget Sound and Oregon’s Willamette Valley as critical habitat. The USFWS said it considered “military training under present conditions a threat to the short-term and long-term conservation of the Taylor’s checker-spot.” The eight-wheeled, armored Stryker vehicle and soldier foot traffic can crush larvae and damage plants on which the butter-flies rely.
The Army has been working with the state, the Center for Natural Lands Management and others to preserve and restore habitat, both on and off the military installation, to reintroduce the butterfly. The military and its partners have committed about $35 million and protected several thousand acres of land in and around JBLM for multiple species. It will likely take years to increase the butterfly’s numbers, but those working on the effort are already seeing some success. Taylor’s checkerspot are establishing at two of three sites at JBLM and on two other sites near Olympia where they have been reintroduced.
“We’re in a much better position now than were five years ago,” said Mary Linders of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Center for Natural Lands Management, a nonprofit group that manages lands that are purchased, works with partners who raise the butterflies in captivity, propagates native prairie plants and prepares sites where the checker-spots can be reintroduced.
Hannah Anderson, rare species program manager at CNLM, said the military’s program helped “protect lands off the base, restore them to high quality and bring the animals there, so we could protect these animals but also the military’s ability to train.”
Linders and others recently walked a section of prairie at the artillery impact area to count adult butterflies and monitor the timing of the flight season.
It’s prime season for the butterflies to mate, and their orange and white checkered wings flutter as they move from one plant to another. They fly in groups and dip into the center of Puget balsamroot, which are in full bloom.
Nearby, bunkers bear evidence of artillery fire. Stakes mark where vehicles must stay on the road, and where soldiers and others are prohibited from digging or camping. Linders points out a nearby cluster of eggs at the base of a red harsh paintbrush flower.
“You can see lots and lots of them as we’re walking through here,” she said of the eggs. “It’s the largest population left in the checker-spot’s range.”
