The National Guard could end up helping protect a large — but vulnerable — butterfly as the Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced a proposal to add the two subspecies of the regal fritillary to the list of threatened and endangered species.
Twelve years after receiving a petition from WildEarth Guardians, the federal agency announced the plan to list the eastern subspecies of the regal fritillary as endangered and the western subspecies as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
“The regal fritillary cannot survive in altered landscapes, including row crop fields, nonnative pastures, developed areas surrounding prairie remnants,” the FWS noted, adding that the butterfly is “a ‘boom-and-bust’ species, which means that when environmental conditions and habitat characteristics are favorable, significant increases in annual population abundance and distribution may occur.”
But when conditions are unfavorable, the FWS said, “individuals become scarce, and local extirpations may occur.”
