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Two Rare Prairie Butterflies Given Protections to Escape Extinction
“By protecting these butterflies, we can protect whole and healthy prairies for our children and grandchildren to enjoy and stop this once-vast landscape from winking out,”said Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians.
Once one of the most abundant native prairie species across eight states, the Poweshiek skipperling vanished from 96 percent of its known range and is now found on lyin Minnesota, the Dakotas, and parts of Canada. The Service listed it as“endangered” under the ESA due to its rapid and continuing decline. The Dakota skipper has disappeared from two of the five states it once called home and is currently found in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Manitoba, Canada. The Service listed it as “threatened” under the ESA, with a special rule that exempts certain activities—including grazing on non-federal lands—from the requirements of the law. Both butterflies are threatened by continuing loss of prairie habitat, invasive plant species that drive out their food plants, and the small size and isolation of remaining populations, which makes them vulnerable to inbreeding and chance events such as wildfire.
Protection under the ESA is an effective safety net for imperiled species: more than 99 percent of plants and animals protected by the law exist today. The law is especially important as a defense against the current extinction crisis; plants and animals are disappearing at a rate much higher than the natural rate of extinction due to human activities. Scientists estimate that 227 species would have gone extinct if not for ESA protections.