All a flutter: How to Benefit Butterflies 

While Behren's and Oregon silverspots aren't found in Humboldt County, there are still ways to lend a helping hand to the endangered butterflies on the local level.

With another banner batch of Behren's caterpillars waiting in the wings for their spring awakening in just a few months, Sequoia Park Zoo Butterfly Conservation Director Christine Damiani is going to be once again depending on volunteers to prepare the piles of leaves needed to keep them fed.

"If people want to help the Behren's silverspot, that's probably one of the best things you can do from Humboldt," she says.

When the tiny larvae — just some 1 to 2 millimeters long — first begin to eat, the violet volunteers will need to hunt through the plants to find "the smallest leaves, before they've opened up," Damiani says, with one of those going to each of the hundreds of caterpillars just beginning their journey to butterfly.

If they eat it all, the portions are upped, meaning Damiani is constantly recalculating just how many leaves might be needed in a given day, especially as the caterpillars molt and grow through each instar stage.

If it weren't for the volunteers, she notes, that task would be what one of her part-time assistants "would be doing all day, every day."

To find out more on how to be part of that vital team, contact Damiani by email at [email protected].

Also, as a program that relies on outside grants and donations, anyone who would like to assist on the financial side can send a check to the Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation or donate to the Animal Enrichment Fund through the zoo's website by indicating the contribution is for the Butterfly Conservation Program.

While the Behren's silverspot is currently the focus, Damiani is still keeping her hand in Oregon silverspot breeding, which have successfully been reared locally before and transferred up to the Oregon Zoo for release.

With restoration efforts in the Lake Earl area of Del Norte County underway, she says, the plan is for the zoo to "play a key role" in bringing the Oregon silverspot back to California. Once that effort is far enough along, Damiani says she will be rearing butterflies at the zoo to be reintroduced in Del Norte County.

On that front, the Sequoia Park Zoo is a part of the annual Scotch Broom Bash that usually takes place in April, with volunteers working to help clear out the invasive plant species from the Lake Earl Wildlife Area to open up space for the violets on which the Oregon silverspot larvae feed and depend to flourish.

Closer to home, just creating a friendly space for pollinators in general, including butterflies and their caterpillars, can make a difference for the insects and keep them from someday becoming threatened or endangered.

Humboldt County alone has 70 different kinds of butterflies, says biologist Clint Pogue, who oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department's recovery efforts for the Behren's and the Oregon silverspot in California.

He recommends visiting pollinator.org for more information on what to plant, noting it's nice to have flowers for butterflies and moths, but it's "important to have caterpillar food, too."

Also, Pogue says leaving some leaves on the ground that those caterpillars will need when they bed down for winter, as well as some overgrown areas in the yard, are all small steps people can take to "help common butterflies while they are still common."

"Because," he notes, "sometimes common butterflies start to become exceedingly rare."

Kimberly Wear (she/her) is the Journal's digital editor. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 323, or [email protected].