Baltimore Zoo teams up to help butterflies.

The Baltimore Zoo, along with a coalition of environmental groups and butterfly enthusiasts, has recently begun work to revive populations of the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly, Maryland's official state insect.

The zoo has joined forces with Environmental Defense (ED), a Washington, D.C. based non-profit dedicated to finding solutions to complicated environmental problems. Having recently joined the Butterfly Conservation Initiative (BFCI), a coalition of organizations committed to butterfly recovery, the zoo had been looking for ways to participate in community conservation efforts. Environmental Defense, also a partner in the BFCI, saw the Baltimore checkerspot as an excellent opportunity to encourage local participation by working on a declining, but not yet federally endangered species. Their hope is to provide a model for local partnerships designed to keep butterflies and other species off the endangered species list through targeted conservation action.

As with many other imperiled species, suburban development has been a cause of the checkerspot's population decline. In addition, the checkerspot's host plant is also in trouble in the wild. Deer eat the tips of the turtlehead plant and either kill the larvae or knock them from their leaves. The Baltimore Zoo provides an ideal habitat for the butterfly because its Turtle Bog area supports an abundance of turtlehead plants and is protected from deer.

The zoo's butterfly project has two objectives. The first is to start a Baltimore checkerspot captive breeding program at the zoo that will eventually provide stock to take back out to wild colonies. The other is to educate Marylanders about the checkerspot and its plight. As Steve Sarro, the Baltimore Zoo's Curator of Birds explains, "It is easy for the zoo to say we are going to help save tigers and elephants, but here is something local that people can actually relate to."