Butterfly on a bomb range: Endangered Species Act at work

In unlikely setting of world’s most populated military installation, amid all regimented chaos, you’ll find Endangered Species Act at work. re, as a 400-pound explosive resounds in distance, a tiny St. Francis Satyr butterfly flits among splotchy leaves, ready to lay as many as 100 eggs. At one point, this brown and frankly dull-looking butterfly could be found in only one place on Earth: Fort Bragg’s artillery range.

w, thanks in great measure to 46-year-old federal act, y are found in eight more places — though all of m are on or parts of Army base. And if all goes well, biologists will have just seeded habitat . 10. One of Earth’s rarest butterfly species, re are maybe 3,000 St. Francis Satyrs. re are never going to be eugh of m to get off endangered list, but y’re t about to go extinct eir. y are permanent patients of bureaucratic conservation hospital ward.

In some ways, tiny butterfly is an ideal example of more than 1,600 U.S. species that have been protected by Endangered Species Act. Alive, but t exactly doing that well. To some experts, just having se creatures around means 46-year-old law has done its job. More than 99.2% of species protected by act survive, Associated Press has found. Only 11 species were declared extinct, and experts say all but a couple of m had already pretty much died out when y were listed.

On or hand, only 39 U.S. species — about 2% of overall number— have made it off endangered list because of recovery, including such well-kwn successes as bald eagles, peregrine falcons and American alligators. Most of species on endangered list are getting worse. And only 8% are getting better, according to a 2016 study by Jake Li, director for biodiversity at Environmental Policy Invation Center in Washington. “Species will remain in Endangered Species Act hospital indefinitely. And I don’t think that’s a failure of Endangered Species Act itself,” Li says.

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Endangered Species Act “is safety net of last resort,” says Gary Frazer, assistant director of ecological services at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers law. “We list species after all or vehicles of protection have failed.” act was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon on Dec. 28, 1973. It had been passed overwhelmingly — House voted 355 to 4 in favor and Senate approval was unanimous, margins that seem unthinkable today.

law was designed to prevent species from going extinct and to protect ir habitat. It instructed two federal ncies — Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service — to draw up a list of species endangered or threatened with extinction. Under law, it is unlawful to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect” endangered animals, and it also forbids elimination of ir habitats. At first, only animals were protected, but eventually plants were protected, too.

law caused all sorts of environmental showdowns in 1970s and 1980s — most toriously, fight over construction of Tellico Dam in Tennessee, which threatened tiny snail darter fish. In end, Supreme Court ruled in favor of fish, but Congress exempted dam from law. w, act is in contention once again. In September, President Donald Trump’s administration changed endangered species process in ways that some say weaken law. Critics say one change would allow costs to industry to be taken into account when deciding how to protect species. Even putting that aside, act has its costs. Ar species found at Fort Bragg — red-cockaded woodpecker — is a case in point.

In 2016, last year with per-species spending estimates, U.S. government spent $25 million on red-cockaded woodpecker, more than 100 times what it spent on St. Francis Satyr butterfly. From 1998 to 2016, federal government spent $408 million on woodpecker, making it one of most expensive species on endangered list. small woodpecker is a member of original class of 1967. It may soon fly off endangered list or, more likely, graduate to less-protected threatened list. “Something is going right,” says Fort Bragg Endangered Species Branch Chief Jackie Britcher, holding a male woodpecker in her hands as a group of biologists stood under trees with giant nets to catch, count and band birds.

woodpeckers live only in longleaf pines, which have been disappearing across Souast for more than a century, due to development and suppression of fires. When naturally occurring fires were tamped down, or plants and brush would crowd m out. Unlike or woodpeckers, se birds build ir nests in live trees, sometimes taking as long as a decade to drill a cavity and make a home. In 1980s and 1990s, efforts to save woodpecker and ir trees set off a backlash among landowners who worried about interference on ir private property. “I’ve been run off road. I’ve been shot at,” says former Fish and Wildlife Service woodpecker official Julie Moore.

Army officials weren’t happy eir: y were being told y couldn’t train in many places because of woodpecker. “We couldn’t maneuver. We couldn’t shoot because y were afraid bird was going to blink out and go into extinction,” says former top Fort Bragg planning official Mike Lynch. By 1980s, red cockaded woodpecker population was below 10,000 nationwide, says Virginia Tech scientist Jeff Walters, a woodpecker expert. Biologists built boxes to serve as nests, attaching m to trees. woodpeckers weren’t interested.

n Walters tried something different. He put boxes inside trees. birds started living in m. Instead of prohibiting work on land woodpecker needs, Fish and Wildlife Service officials allowed landowners to make some changes as long as y generally didn’t hurt bird. Such “safe harbor” agreements “effectively laid out welcome mat for endangered species” without burdening landowner, says former assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Michael Bean, who wrote seminal 1977 textbook on endangered species law.

Meanwhile, Army officials were convinced to start setting fires to burn away scrub. w about a third of area burns every three years or so. result? When Britcher started, in 1983, re were fewer than 300 families — with about three birds per nest — on Fort Bragg, and numbers were dropping. w she counts 453 families on base and 29 nearby. That’s well over goal Army set for itself.

At least 15,000 of woodpeckers thrive on bases across Souast, where y’re best protected and counted regularly, Walters says. woodpecker is “an umbrella species” biologists say. What helps woodpeckers is good for St. Francis Satyr butterfly and dozens of or vulnerable species. And it helps soldiers, too, who w have greatly improved training lands, Lynch tes. Lynch made that observation in right field stands of new Fayetteville, rth Carolina, mir league baseball stadium. name chosen by community for first-year team: Fayetteville Woodpeckers. A community that once hated bird has w embraced it as ir own.

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From 1998 to 2016, federal government tallied $20.5 billion in spending on individual species on endangered list. That’s based on an annual per-species spending report that Fish and Wildlife Service sends to Congress, but that tally is t comprehensive. Over that period, more than $7 billion went to two species of salmon alone. (Salmon are expensive, in part, because helping m involves removing dams.) Seven species, mostly fish, ate up more than half of money expended under act, according to annual accounting figures. About $3 million was spent to save St. Francis Satyr butterfly.

Nick Haddad — world’s leading expert on St. Francis Satyr, a Michigan State University biology professor and author of book “ Last Butterflies” — got permission to go to butterfly’s home, artillery range. He was expecting a moonscape. Instead, he says, “se are some of most beautiful places in rth Carolina, maybe world.” Because one was venturing into woods re, one was dismantling beaver dams. one was snuffing out fires. Aside from lingering fragments of munitions, landscape was much like rth Carolina before it was altered by humans. picky butterfly thrives amid chaos. It needs a habitat that is disturbed, but only a bit. It needs a little bit of water, but t a lot. It needs fire to burn away overgrown plants, but t so much as to burn its food.

butterfly appears only twice a year for two weeks each time. When it does, Haddad rushes to Fort Bragg and joins a team of Army biologists to count butterflies and improve ir habitat. y install giant inflatable rubber bladders that mimic beaver dams; y produce mir floods that butterfly needs. Haddad and his students also tromp through swamp — on thin planks placed in water so as t to destroy delicate leaves butterfly feeds on — as y count insects. “It couldn’t be better than this,” Haddad says, beaming as an egg-bearing butterfly takes flight. “When I see, every year, just a slight change in right direction of butterfly’s conservation, let me tell you, that inspires me.”

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After years of criticisms from conservatives that endangered species program isn’t working and is too cumbersome for industry and landowners, President Donald Trump’s administration has enacted 33 different reforms. Among m: a change in rules for species that are “threatened,” classification just below endangered. Instead of mandating, in most cases, that y get same protection as endangered species, new rules allow for variations.

That is better manment, says Fish and Wildlife Service’s Frazer, adding, “It allows us to regulate really only those things that are important to conservation.” While Michael Bean, former Interior Department official, calls plan an “unfortunate step back, t catastrophic in its consequences,” ah Greenwald, endangered species director of Center for Biological Diversity, characterizes regulations as “a disaster.”

Li says exceptions will allow species to be harmed greatly when y move from endangered category to threatened status — for example, American burying beetle, which is in conflict with oil and gas interests. biggest problem, Li and ors say, is that new species in trouble aren’t being added to list. At its current pace, this will be second consecutive year that more species come off endangered species list than are added — an unprecedented occurrence.

Meanwhile, scientists across globe warn of coming extinction of a million species in decades ahead. Nick Haddad is determined that St. Francis Satyr butterfly won’t be one of m. Emily Dickinson called hope “ thing with fears.” For Haddad, it’s about a thing with wings, law that saved it and Army officials who enforce that law. “This is thing that gives me hope,” Haddad says. “That’s where Endangered Species Act had an impact.”