BUTTERFLY COMEBACK FUELED BY PUBLIC FUNDS.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

In the deserted dunes just west of LAX, where crumbling foundations of homes testify to past expansions, nature has made a startlingly beautiful comeback - with the help of millions of public dollars.

The endangered El Segundo blue butterflies that two decades ago numbered fewer than 500 have multiplied to more than 80,000 today, turning the 200 acres of airport habitat into the world's largest preserve.

The cultivation of the butterflies, or Euphilotes battoides allyni, has not been without cost or a mixture of motives, however.

Los Angeles World Airports has spent millions to foster the delicate and finicky insects that grow to thumbnail size on a diet of coastal buckwheat before expiring in a few days during the mating season that runs from about mid-June through mid-August.

The airport runs a buckwheat nursery on the premises and has installed an extensive sprinkler system to make sure the plants thrive once they are transplanted.

Steven Crowther, the airport's environmental manager, estimates it costs the airport about $250,000 a year - or about $3.20 a butterfly - for an environmental consulting firm, airport staff and gardeners to groom the dunes for invasive plants that threaten the buckwheat, in particular ice plants and acacias.

The airport is voluntarily making the expenditures in hopes that some day the El Segundo blues - named after the male's purplish-blue wings - will become numerous enough to be removed from the federal government's list of endangered species. That would lift some of the constraints airport officials now face in going onto the dunes to fix or relocate airport navigational devices.

``Everyone's ultimate goal is to get them delisted,'' Crowther said. ``The preserve would remain, but it would be easier for us to work out here.''

The El Segundo blues won't affect LAX's proposed $12 billion expansion, however, he said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Carol Gorbics said the airport has run an excellent program. But she said that before the butterflies can be relisted in the less restrictive ``threatened'' category, more years of progress will have to be documented and three other, smaller habitats outside the airport's jurisdiction will also have to show gains.

``While the airport dunes are close to achieving these things, we still have to ensure that the other populations are exhibiting the same trends,'' she said.

The El Segundo blues' habitat runs roughly from Palos Verdes to the Ballona Wetlands.

Fenced off from the public, the airport's preserve is the providence of scientists and surveyors with now-and-then signs of animal life, including rare sightings of the red fox.

The surveyors await the hatching of the pupae, which spend most of the year burrowed into the soil or leaf litter, then try to do a visual count as the insects zip about the white and pink buckwheat flowerheads.

Though the butterflies usually don't stray more than a few hundred feet from their birthplace before they die, they move so quickly it's almost impossible not to double-count some and to miss others, said Andrew Huang, the airport scientist overseeing the butterfly project.

The female butterfly is less garish, with only a subtle orange stripe marking her brownish wings. She lays up to 120 eggs before expiring, often devoured by crab or lynx spiders.

Huang said more studies are needed to better determine exactly how the El Segundo blues, one of six subspecies of the more abundant San Bernardino blues, differ genetically, as well as to explore whether they can survive on a wider variety of plant food - issues that could bear on a delisting decision.

Many of the studies on blues in general have been funded by former Chicago White Sox owner Arthur C. Allyn, a butterfly enthusiast, for whom the subspecies allyni is named.

Huang said the anticipated studies also will help the airport better manage the preserve.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) The El Segundo blue butterfly opens its wings to dissipate heat.

(2--Color) Three El Segundo blue butterflies share a buckwheat flower at a special preserve built and maintained by LAX west of the airport.

(3--Color) The El Segundo blue butterfly grows to the size of a thumbnail.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer