WildEarth Guardians

Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Three Rare Insects Move Closer to Endangered Species Act Safeguards

A Butterfly and Two Diving Beetles Take Key Step Toward Protection
Contact: Taylor Jones (720) 443-2615

Washington, DC—Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced that it will evaluate three rare insects for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA): the Great Basin silverspot butterfly, narrow-foot diving beetle, and Scott riffle beetle. This decision results from three petitions submitted by WildEarth Guardians in 2013. The Service now has 12 months to further study the species and decide whether to propose protections as “threatened” or “endangered” for each imperiled insect.

“The declines of these small insects are caused by serious threats like disappearing aquifers and streams; those problems need to be addressed for the sake of plants, animals and people,” said Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “The smallest animals often give us the biggest warning signs of nature in crisis, and the Service should act quickly to address the causes of these insects’ declines.”

The Great Basin silverspot butterfly (Speyeria nokomis nokomis) is a large orange-brown butterfly with black markings which inhabits wet meadows, seepage areas, and marshes in otherwise desert habitats of the Southwest. The butterfly depends on the bog violet (Viola nephrophylla), the only plant its larvae will eat. In the U.S., they are found in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, but have disappeared from many of their former sites. Habitat loss and fragmentation is the greatest threat to silverspots, along with insecticides and climate change. In the last 150 years, the Great Basin completely lost more than half of its wetlands.

The narrow-foot diving beetle (Hygrotus diversipes) is found only in natural pools in eastern Wyoming. Suitable habitats are few and shrinking. Stream diversion, livestock grazing, and energy development have severely damaged many diving beetle pools. For example, Dugout Creek, where the species was first discovered, has been heavily grazed and trampled and no longer has a diving beetle population. Climate change is expected to exacerbate these threats by increasing the length and intensity of droughts.

The Scott riffle beetle (Optioservus phaeus gilbert) lives in only one spring in the world—Big Springs in Lake Scott State Park in western Kansas—and its unique habitat is threatened by the dewatering of the underlying Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer is an underground reservoir beneath the High Plains of the United States. It is maintained by stores of water trapped in layers of sediment dating back to the last ice age. It is recharged by rain and snow, but that recharge is minimal (averaging less than one inch annually) and is far outweighed by current depletion. The aquifer is in overdraft from being heavily tapped for agriculture. In parts of western Kansas, the aquifer level has decreased by more than 150 feet, and may be reaching the threshold beyond which it can no longer support heavy water demands.

“These insects give the Service a perfect opportunity to ‘think globally and act locally,’ since they are impacted by large-scale threats,” continued Jones. “The Endangered Species Act is a proven tool for preventing extinction and aiding imperiled species on the path to recovery and these three species needs the Act’s protections now.”

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; species 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 by 2006 if not for ESA protections.