Patty Loew:
Summer means the return of the Karner Blue butterfly. They're a federally endangered species and are rare except in Wisconsin. Now the DNR is getting a $1.5 million grant to buy land vital to their survival. Jo Garrett first brought you this report in 2004 and we thought it was worth another look at the world's largest Karner Blue butterfly population near Necedah.

Jo Garrett:
They are here. But they require a little searching because they're so small.  

Man:
Karner Blue butterflies are postage stamp size, roughly speaking. As the name indicates, blue, baby blue.  

Jo Garrett:
Rich King is the staff biologist at ground zero of Karner Blue butterflies, the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge.

Rich King:
The refuge hosts the world's largest population. You can find more here than you can anywhere.

Jo Garrett:
This is the mother lode, which is pretty amazing, since these beauties are almost gone, pretty much everywhere else.  

Rich King:
Federally it's an endangered species, which means it has protections under the endangered species act. States like New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, the province of Ontario, the butterflies are almost entirely gone.

Jo Garrett:
Yet here, these creatures are common. Why? What explains this winged mystery? The answer is in our flowers.  

Jo Garrett:
Our flowers, the food source for Karner Blues, particularly for their picky children.

Rich King:
Adult butterflies will feed on over 100 different flowering plants, so they don't really care. But their larval food source is very specific. It is one species, wild lupine, and if you don't have it, you're not going to have butterflies. There's a patch right here.

Jo Garrett:
The larval form needs this lupine. Here's how it works.

Rich King:
The female then will lay about 80 eggs on this lupine stem or down in the grass around the base of the lupine stem. And basically the idea is when the larvae came out for the first brood, which would be next May or June, they'll have their food source right there. They don't have to go far to find it.

Jo Garrett:
And they can't make it without it.  

Rich King:
You have to have wild lupine to have Karner Blue butterflies.

Jo Garrett:
And fewer and fewer places have wild lupine, fewer and fewer places have the habitat, the landscape that lupine need, wide, open, oak savannah, shaped by fire.  

Jo Garrett:
Places like Necedah.

Rich King:
In the eastern part of the butterfly's range, there's a lot of development. Changing these upland sites into subdivisions, industrial parks, what have you.  

Jo Garrett:
They need places like these and they're rapidly disappearing.  

Jo Garrett:
Such an ephemeral thing, like so many sweet parts of summer, they come and go.

Rich King:
The adults only live for a week, two at the most.

Jo Garrett:
They come and go. They have just two hatchlings, two times of flight, one in late May, one in late July. But the presence this tiny animal tells a larger story about the landscape and legacy of Wisconsin.  

Rich King:
Karner blue butterflies in their own right are beautiful little butterflies. But it's really a symbol for not only the habitat and the fact that here in Wisconsin we have more of that habitat than anywhere else, because of the care we've taken with the land, but also it's really a symbol of Wisconsin's environmental ethic and there's a reason we have more of this habitat and more butterflies here in this state than anywhere else.

Jo Garrett:
They're here for a reason that can be seen all year round, in Necedah and across Wisconsin.  

Patty Loew:
The DNR will use the grant money to purchase land in the Quincy Bluffs and Wetlands state natural area in southern Adams County not far from Necedah. Experts say the new habitat is perfect for the butterflies.