We are really excited to announce a conservation project that we have been preparing for since we first started creating the Wildlife Center! Way back when we found the primary host plant for the Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly (Maryland’s State Insect), the White Turtlehead, growing in our wetland. Then, partnering with Kollar Nursery to supply us with Turtlehead, we began an effort to plant more each year so that we would have a healthy number to support either the natural arrival of butterflies from a nearby site or the reintroduction of caterpillars to establish a new, protected population to hopefully supplement others nearby. We also have established our large meadow with native wildflowers that can provide nectar for adult Checkerspot butterflies. This species is unlike migratory butterflies such as the Monarch that can easily find new patches of their host plant and is able to travel great distances to do so. Our sources indicate that they need a lot of host plant (not just a few backyard plants) as well as other potential sites nearby either with more butterflies that can move back and forth across different seasons and lots plants both for food and nectar. The tiny adults are only alive for one season so they don’t particularly have the time or ability to travel far, hence our goal to have everything they need in one place.
This year we had an enthusiastic Towson University student, Madison, contact us with an interest in conducting a research project involving the reintroduction. Now having not only all of the necessary ingredients for Checkerspot survival, we had someone to help manage, document and study the process from start to finish. We then asked our partners at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to approve and oversee the efforts to ensure the best opportunity for success, given this is a rare and declining species in our state.
With their permission and guidance we moved a select number of caterpillars from a few documented healthy populations in another area of Harford and Baltimore Counties and moved them to our site. To ensure the best chance of survival we fenced in each of our several patches of White Turtlehead to prevent White-tailed Deer from grazing the plants, one of the Checkerspots greatest threats and reasons for declining numbers in many areas, a lack of food. As we began to plan our project to coordinate with the best timing to move caterpillars, we were contacted by Haley who was looking to do a project for her Girl Scout Gold Award, and we had the perfect one! Haley will help Madison monitor the caterpillars and butterflies as well as build a more permanent enclosure where we can safely raise both Turtlehead and Caterpillars as needed for years to come.
To ensure our best chances of success, we followed guidelines from previous work on Baltimore Checkerspots done by researchers from Tufts University and added “Bug Dorms” to protect each small group of caterpillars spread throughout the property from predators such as parasitic wasps and birds while allowing them to eat naturally growing food and go through their life cycle. Once they complete their metamorphosis into butterflies they will be released to freely mate and lay eggs on Turtlehead of their choosing. Once we find the eggs we will start the process of protecting them again as they overwinter until the population is healthy enough to sustain on its own. If all goes as planned, we hope this will serve as a model to help reestablish our state insect across some of its former range where it has been lost.
We already have several caterpillars that have formed their chrysalis! If all goes well, in just a few weeks we will have our first butterflies flying around our Baltimore Checkerspot Restoration area since we have been building our Wildlife Center! We have been actively locating and protecting all of the White Turtlehead host plants we can find on our property so that when the adults lay their eggs we can closely monitor them through their cycle which goes all the way through this time next year. Then with some luck and a lot of work we will do everything we can to keep that going into the future the best we can. Today certainly marks a great first milestone! More updates on this project to come soon!
