Silverspot Butterfly Talk

Oregon Silverspot Butterfly. | Courtesy of the Cape Perpetua Marine Reserve

Speaking as part of the Cape Perpetua Speaker Series (which is offered January-March), Anne Walker, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, will discuss the threatened Oregon silverspot butterfly, whose range is now limited to a handful of coastal meadows, and efforts being carried out by multiple agencies and partners to save the species.  The talk takes place at 1 p.m., March 17, in the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center (2400 Hwy 101, about three miles south of Yachats).  It is free and open to all, but a day pass is required to park at the visitor center.

Walker helps to direct a process called “augmentation” – an effort to reintroduce the butterfly by releasing caterpillars at specific sites across the state. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced it will release hundreds of caterpillars at two new sites this summer and next: the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge in southern Tillamook County and the Saddle Mountain area in central Clatsop County.  The caterpillars were bred at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, as well as the Woodland Park Zoo in Washington.

The small reddish-orange butterflies with their distinctive silver spots were once found on coastal grasslands from Northern California to southern Washington, but development, changes to the forest and invasive weeds and grasses reduced the silverspots’ preferred habitat. The decline is linked primarily to a lack of early blue violets, the plant on which the Oregon silverspot depends in order to successfully feed and develop as larva.