Endangered Butterflies Find Their Wings

Have you ever heard of a Poweshiek skipperling? This small butterfly with a big name used to flutter freely across Minnesota prairies until habitat loss and pesticides led to population collapse. Now, they are critically endangered; there has not been a confirmed sighting of a wild Poweshiek skipperling in Minnesota since 2008. The Minnesota Zoo’s conservation team is working hard to change that. Since 2016, the Zoo has been working to rear and release Poweshiek skipperlings to support the survival and growth of North America’s few remaining wild populations. This year, the Minnesota Zoo and its partners at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Poweshiek Skipperling International Partnership initiated the first ever Poweshiek skipperling reintroduction to new prairie land in the United States. This groundbreaking reintroduction marks an important milestone in the effort to save this critically endangered butterfly. If reintroduction of this new population is successful, it will pave the way for species recovery across the range, meaning, one day, Poweshiek skipperlings may fly across Minnesota prairies again. This year the Minnesota Zoo helped to rear and release over 1,300 Poweshiek skipperlings to new and existing homes in eastern Michigan — the largest release to date! This groundbreaking program is directly funded by donors like you. Thank you!

Giving Wood Turtles a Big Head Start!

As the land of 10,000+ lakes, Minnesota should be paradise for freshwater turtles. However, for the nine species of freshwater turtles that call Minnesota home, not everything is going swimmingly. Due to habitat loss, road mortality, nest predation, poaching, and climate change, two of Minnesota’s freshwater turtles, Blanding’s and wood turtles, are now considered threatened species. The Minnesota Zoo’s conservation team has stepped in to help. The Zoo’s conservation team has been hard at work analyzing and confronting threats facing Minnesota turtles. Using radio telemetry and GPS transmitters, “Team Turtle” can track threatened turtles to learn about habitat use, nesting locations, and more. But that’s not all — the Zoo’s turtle head start program has given wood turtles another reason to shell-abrate! Each year since the program’s beginning in 2018, the Zoo has incubated wood turtle eggs, hatching and raising them in a controlled environment until they are a year old and ready to be released. This head start allows young turtles to grow safely, provides them with a major size advantage upon release, and can greatly reduce predation risk. Just this year, the Zoo is on track to release 30 wood turtles into wild homes adding to the more than 100 hatchlings they’ve released to date. Without support from donors like you, essential programs like these would not be possible. Thank you!

A Hunt for a Perfect Home

One of the largest risks to the future of threatened and endangered species is habitat loss and degradation. When natural environments like prairies and waterways are destroyed or compromised by human interference, native species are often left with nowhere to go. One of the leading causes of prairie degradation is pesticides, chemicals used to combat pests and disease that are harmful to native pollinators such as Poweshiek skipperlings and Dakota skipper butterflies. As the Zoo works to revive and reintroduce these species across the region, the hunt for “clean” prairie lands is in full swing. To find the perfect homes for new populations, the Zoo conservation team is studying pesticide drift. Pesticide use is most prevalent in crop fields. However, these chemicals can drift, contaminating ecosystems many miles away. This year, the Zoo is at work collecting host-grasses from dozens of sites across the Upper Midwest and analyzing them for insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other contaminates that could hurt developing caterpillars. Once safe locations are found, they can be marked as potential areas for butterfly reintroduction. The Zoo has been studying pesticide drift for a decade, but this latest project is an exciting step toward the recovery of Poweshiek skipperlings and Dakota skipper butterflies. Thanks to research like this, native pollinators will have a chance to thrive again, eventually spreading their wings across the Midwest. Inspiring conservation work like this would not be possible without your generosity!