Real estate deal gives a boost to New Hampshire’s imperiled state butterfly

A portion of Concord’s pine barrens, the only known home in all of New England for the iridescent, endangered Karner blue butterfly, is changing hands. 

Nearly seven acres of sandy, lupine-laden property adjacent to an existing conservation easement will transfer from private ownership to the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game after the $575,000 sale was approved by Gov. Kelly Ayotte and the Executive Council earlier this month.

The acquisition will expand the limited amount of protected habitat for the species, which is New Hampshire’s state butterfly, as well as more than two dozen other species of concern, according to the Department of Fish and Game.

Three-quarters of the cost will be covered by a federal grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while the remaining 25% will come from the department — including approximately $47,000 raised last year in a funding appeal geared specifically toward acquiring this parcel, said Michael Marchand, nongame and endangered wildlife program supervisor. About 400 people donated toward the cause.

Karner blue butterflies, a federally endangered species, are known for their powder-blue wings and reliance on a very specific type of habitat: open meadows where mature trees allow enough sunlight to the ground for nectar-bearing flowers, like the wild lupines that Karner blues depend on, to flourish. 

Concord’s pine barrens are a prime example of this ecosystem. The limited amount of Karner blue butterflies remaining in the Northeast depend on this habitat to survive, according to a letter from New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game Executive Director Stephanie Simek and Business Division Chief Kathy Ann LaBonte to the Governor and Executive Council.

Karner blues were once found in the East across a 12-state swath that stretched into Canada, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But as more and more land was developed, the pine barrens — and, in other states, oak savannas — that they depend on shrank rapidly, causing the species’ numbers to plunge. These ecosystems depend on fire to keep the forest understory open and sunny; but with increased development, fire suppression increased, too, further contributing to the disappearance of Karner blue habitat.

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By 1999, scientists believed that Karner blues had been eradicated from New Hampshire. 

But, in collaboration with the New Hampshire Army National Guard, the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game initiated a captive rearing program for the butterflies, raising caterpillars in captivity before releasing them into the wild every year to help bring the species back from the brink.

Today, Karner blues are doing better, but they remain classified as endangered at both the state and federal level.

The acquisition of the property will help Fish and Game continue efforts to restore the species, Simek and LaBonte wrote.

The property to be purchased is located on Concord’s Regional Drive, alongside the New Hampshire E-ZPass service center and abutting the 28-acre Karner Blue Butterfly Easement. Like the easement, it contains prime habitat for Karner blues, and scientists have long believed that it hosts the species, Simek and LaBonte wrote in the letter — but it has been posted against trespassing for decades, preventing researchers from conducting surveys, they said.

Other rare and endangered species that the department believes will benefit from the acquisition include the frosted elfin butterfly and pitch pine tree, as well as other “pollinators, birds, mammals, and reptiles,” according to the letter.