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Sunday, September 22, 2002

Rare Miami blue fights to survive

By DINAH VOYLES PULVER
NEWS-JOURNAL ENVIRONMENT WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH — Officially, Florida has only one endangered species of butterfly -- the Schaus' swallowtail -- but the Miami blue butterfly soon may be added to the list.

The North American Butterfly Association asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Miami blue to the list last year.

The Service recently declined to list the blue on an emergency basis but concluded the listing might be warranted and agreed to do further research, including paying for a survey to search for Miami blue butterflies in the Florida Keys, said spokesman Dave Martin.

The Schaus' swallowtail was first listed as threatened but reclassified to endangered in 1984, after University of Florida professor Thomas Emmel found only 70 adults. Emmel traced the species' demise to two pesticides used to fight mosquitoes.

Then in 1992, Hurricane Andrew nearly blew the species away. Only 17 males were found that year.

But, Emmel already had started a captive breeding program for the butterfly and today the species is slowly recovering.

More than 2,000 captive bred swallowtails have been introduced into the wild and are found in more than 13 places. But, officials say urban sprawl fragments the habitat and makes it difficult for butterflies to reach others to mate.

Last year, the university and wildlife service worked with the Cheeca Lodge golf resort in Islamorada to plant torchwood and wild lime trees to provide a stopping off spot for the butterfly.

Hurricane Andrew also had a devastating impact on the Miami blue.

Now a decade later the butterfly is still hovering on the brink of disappearing, with an estimated 50 left in the wild.

It frustrates Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the butterfly association, that the federal government has taken so long to act on the request to list the butterfly.

Federal officials cite budget problems, an overload of work and a lengthy scientific review process as reasons for the delay.

"This should have been listed already," Glassberg said. "This butterfly could easily disappear tomorrow from anti-mosquito spraying."

HCIC Special Report: Butterflies Are More than Beautiful: Can We Keep Them Alive?

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