The Future Of Butterfly Conservation

Butterfly conservation is often one of the most difficult forms of restoration in all of natural sciences. The reason of difficulty is due to the layers of their environments that we don’t always fully understand. What builds up the niche of an ecosystem in which a butterfly colony exists? What are the unforeseen elements in this meadow, or in this particular corner of this meadow that this population needs in order to survive? The balance and sensitivity of butterfly populations and the habitats in which they live in is a continuous study in the race of conservation efforts. Butterflies can be reliant on things as unsuspecting as a soil type, the presence or absence of other organisms, certain temperatures and annual rainfall, how much leaf cover there is for their caterpillars, or even something as complex as a symbiotic relationship with ants. Lepidopterists and butterfly researchers are discovering new aspects of life history, behavior, and ecology all the time on species that were once thought to be well understood. However, no matter how delicate or small butterfly needs are, there is one conservation issue that couldn’t be debated by anyone: the immense loss of habitat across the country. We may never discover all the secrets that every kind of butterfly has, but we know they can’t possibly get what they need if there’s no ecosystems left at all.

Many people are familiar with the idea of pollinator gardens, but few understand the invaluable impact that they’re making in the world with every square foot of native plants that they put into the ground. Native is the key word there. Every species of butterfly, moth, and most insects relies on just a handful, or even a single kind of native plant to lay their eggs on to reproduce. These are known as “host plants”, where the caterpillars consume the leaves in order to grow. Without healthy ecosystems full of host plants and various wildflower nectar sources our local butterfly populations would cease to exist. This is where the idea of native starts to play such a huge role in conservation. Even though any kind of flower can provide nectar and pollen for wildlife, if we don’t have native plants, insects won’t be able to reproduce. So why wouldn’t we plant indigenous perennials instead of traditional garden plants and annuals? Aside from being more ecologically important, native plants are always more drought resident, so it saves us money on water, and they’re less likely to have unwanted weeds by growing fully and denser.

Douglas Tallamy is an entomologist out of the University of Delaware, who has become quite famous over the past couple years. He did all sorts of studies to figure out for us, which of our indigenous plants are used the most by native insects. He figured out that with as little as just a handful of the plants on this list, you can hold a host plant sanctuary for over 2,000 species of Lepidoptera, both butterflies and moths, right in your own backyard! For example, goldenrod has 115 species using it as a host plant. Asters and boneset contribute to another 185 species - and oaks alone are used as a host for over 900 species of caterpillars nationwide. 

     Tallamy came up with this statistic that 70% of US land is privately owned, either by housing or business. 5% of the original habitat here in the United States is still intact in a healthy way. With all the destruction, logging, mowing, and paving that has taken away our natural lands, the first step to recovery is to start converting that land back into productive ecosystems. We can do that by creating backyard gardens with native plants. More native plants and waystations on our properties means more insects, such as pollinators, which directly benefit us and the entire food web - because if these plants were to go extinct from invasives and habitat destruction, we’d have no oxygen, no clean water, nothing to capture carbon, and so on. If butterflies and insects were to go extinct, flowering plants, native, or not would die, our crops would die, birds and mammals would go extinct, and our biosphere would rot. 

     Sixteen out of twenty bird families use caterpillars as their #1 source of food to feed their young. We are talking about all the beloved songbirds such as warblers, vireos, orioles, flycatchers, gnatcatchers, and birds like chickadees, sparrows, catbirds, thrashers, woodpeckers, cuckoos, cardinals, wrens, thrushes, and even crows! One regular sized caterpillar is equal to the biomass of 200 aphids, so catching caterpillars is way more efficient for raising chicks. They are also really high in fiber which helps chicks grow at the speed they need to and caterpillars are also a huge carotenoid source for birds, which they don’t really get from other food sources in their diet. So by native plant gardening, you’re not just saving butterflies and pollinators, you’re also creating a caterpillar and larva buffet for birds and mammals. Native plants are the key to supporting the entirety of our natural ecosystems and thus our planet. Tallamy founded https://homegrownnationalpark.org which adds up backyard biomass to see just how many private gardens make up the United States and to encourage more people to add new gardens on their properties.

Wondering what kind of top plants to get in the South Jersey area? Here’s a list of some common favorites:

Flowering Perennials: 

New York Ironweed, Late Boneset, Common Boneset, Common Milkweed, Butterflyweed, Swamp Milkweed, Seaside Goldenrod, Stiff-leaved Goldenrod, Field Goldenrod, Goldentops, Joe-Pye-Weed, Dense Blazing Stars, (Yellow) Baptisia, Purple Coneflower, Purple Vervain, Woodland Sunflower, Rosinweed, Rattlesnake Master, Golden Alexander, Foxglove Beardtongue, Purple False Foxglove, Obedient Plant, Horsemint, Wild Bergamot, Wild Geranium, Slender Mountain Mint, Yarrow, Blue Mistflower, Evening Primrose, Field Pussytoe, New England Aster, Camphorated, Maryland Golden Aster, Smooth Blue Aster, Hairy White Oldfield Aster, Lance Leaf Coreopsis, Partridge Pea, Wild Senna, Turk’s Cap Lily.

Native Trees & Shrubs 

Groundsel, Button Bush, Sweet Pepperbush, Shadbush, Marsh Elder, Highland Blueberry, Mountain Laurel, Pinxter Azalea, Swamp Azalea, Common Hackberry, Dwarf Hackberry, Black Cherry, Beach Plum, Eastern Red Cedar, Atlantic White Cedar, Flowering Dogwood, Chestnut Oak, Black Oak, S & N Red Oak, Willow Oak, Scarlet Oak, White Oak, Mockernut, Sweet Gum, Red Maple, Eastern White Pine, Pitch Pine, Virginia Pine, Tulip Tree.

Other Native Plants (grasses, ferns, vines, etc.)

Little Bluestem, Big Bluestem, Switchgrass, Purple Love Grass, Cinnamon Fern, Netted Chain Fern, Coral Honeysuckle, Virginia Creeper.

You can also visit the National Wildlife Federation’s Native Plant Finder website where no matter where you are in the country, you can put in your local zip code and it will show you all the top native plants in your area, how many species use it as a host plant, and it even provides photographs and descriptions of many of those species. Visit the link here: https://nativeplantfinder.nwf.org. You can also certify your yard as as wildlife habitat through the NWF or through NABA! https://naba.org/butterfly-gardens/. It’s a great way to share the importance of wildlife gardening with your neighbors and friends.

You can get plants to put in your garden from almost anywhere, like Home Depot, Lowe’s, or local garden centers. Yet, there is a silent killer with many of these plants. If it’s not specifically a native plant nursery, chances are where you’re getting your plants, they have been laced with neonicotinoids. These are synthetic, neurotoxic insecticides that usually get coated on the seed of the plant. In combination with common fungicides that are used on farms, they can be far more deadly that pesticides. When a butterfly, bee, or other kind of insect visits your flowers, they get exposed with the chemicals and it attacks the central nervous system of the insect, leading to paralysis and death. This is why sourcing your plants from native plant nurseries is key and it is important to ask beforehand whether the plants are neonicotinoid-free when visiting new places. A list of some safe places to get plants in South Jersey is provided below:

Flora For Fauna, in Woodbine, Cape May County

The Wildlife Gardener, in Cape May Court House

Wild About Plants at Heidi’s Acres, in Cape May Court House 

NJ Audubon’s Nature Center of Cape May 

Pinelands Preservation Alliance 

Secluded Acres, in Rio Grande, Cape May County

Native plant gardening, or often referred to as “wildlife gardening”, is only becoming more popular as awareness spreads. Another big movement right now, which is a key component to being a steward for butterflies, is to “leave your leaves” in your flower beds and across as much of your lawn as possible during the winter. Several species of insects and especially butterflies, overwinter as pupae, or as eggs underneath the leaf litter, or ground soil. By raking out your flower beds during the fall, you’re exposing all those larvae to frost, if you didn’t already crush them when you were raking. Waiting till mid-May to remove leaves from your yard here in the Mid-Atlantic is a necessary sacrifice to ensuring that the cool bugs that you attracted to your yard have a chance to safety emerge and fly away come the spring. This also goes with stems and reeds (that are often hallow inside), which allows native bees and other vital pollinators to stay warm during the winter months.

Wildlife gardening is the future of butterfly conservation, as more and more habitat is added back across our nation. We can’t necessarily reverse parking lots and cities everywhere that we try, but what we can do is prepare a sanctuary and safe space to support life right in our own backyards - or front yards, side yards, pots in window sills, or wherever else we can fit them into. By providing stepping stones in between larger habitats, we are giving butterfly populations a chance to not only stay healthy, but to rebound.

- Jack McDonough

Coordinator

NABA South Jersey Chapter