WildEarth Guardians

Monday, April 22, 2013
Federal Protection Sought for Rare Butterfly

Great Basin Silverspot Threatened by Habitat Loss, Climate Change
Contact: Taylor Jones (505) 490-5141

Washington, DC – WildEarth Guardians is petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to list the Great Basin silverspot butterfly (Speyeria nokomis nokomis) under the Endangered Species Act. This rare butterfly inhabits wet meadows, seepage areas, and marshes in otherwise desert habitats of the southwest. In the U.S., they are found in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, but have disappeared from many of their former sites.

“Streams and wetlands are some of the most endangered areas of the southwest,” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “These butterflies are telling us to pay attention, and protect these arteries of life.”

The Great Basin silverspot is a large orange-brown butterfly with black markings, among the largest species in the Speyeria genus. They depend on the bog violet (Viola nephrophylla), their only known larval food plant. Habitat loss and fragmentation is the greatest threat to silverspots – like many southwestern species, they are losing habitat to development, heavy grazing, mineral extraction, and other human activities. Water use is also changing the nature of the wet meadows and other riparian areas the species depends on. More than half of the wetlands in the Great Basin have been completely eliminated in the last 150 years. Remaining wetlands are more isolated and are disproportionately impacted by recreational vehicles, livestock grazing, water diversions, and well water development. Silverspots currently have no legal protection at either the state or federal level, with the exception of populations within the Navajo Nation.

Listing species under the Endangered Species Act has proven an effective safety net for imperiled species: more than 99 percent of plants and animals listed under the Act persist today. The law is especially important as a bulwark against the current extinction crisis; plants and animals 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 if not for ESA listing.