Still No Sign of Cloudcroft’s Vanishing Checkerspot Butterfly
The subspecies exists only in the Sacramento Mountains and hasn’t been seen in the wild since 2022. This summer's field searches are the recovery effort’s last strategy.
A team of researchers spent July 1 walking the high meadows near Cloudcroft in search of a butterfly that lives nowhere else on earth.
The Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly, a subspecies whose name comes from the town it was first found near, has not been confirmed in the wild since 2022.
Once again, the team did not find it.
In May, the last individual held in captivity died at the Albuquerque BioPark, ending a years-long effort to rear the insect in a lab.
The subspecies was listed as federally endangered in 2023, despite warnings of decline since the late 1990s. With the captive line gone, the summer field searches are what the recovery effort has left, and the question hanging over each one is whether the butterfly still exists in the wild at all.
“We did not see the Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly, but I did not have super high expectations that we would,” said Dr. Quin Baine, a species survival specialist for invertebrates at the New Mexico BioPark Society, who led the field work.
Wednesday’s search was one of several this summer, staffed by a few people each week from mid-June through the end of July.
How the Search Works
The work comes in two parts. Surveyors follow set routes through the meadows using a modified Pollard walk, a special butterfly population-monitoring and tracking method, to log every butterfly species they see within a fixed distance and net some for catch-and-release identification.
They also collect flower heads from the checkerspot’s preferred nectar plant for environmental DNA testing, which can detect traces of an animal from the places it has touched. The samples are kept cold and sent to a laboratory for sequencing.
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Even on a day when the checkerspot does not turn up, Baine said the survey has value, because documenting the other butterflies that fill these meadows builds a record of the ecosystem’s health.
“There’s so much value in documenting every other butterfly species that lives in these meadows, because this ecosystem supports a huge number of endemic butterflies and plants,” she said.
Long Odds
Baine was measured about what a single empty search means.
“One day doesn’t have that much meaning in and of itself,” she said, noting that a whole team is covering the mountains at different times through the summer. “But it doesn’t point toward an optimistic result.”
Pressed on whether the butterfly will be found this season, Baine said she thinks it is unlikely, but not impossible. Survey coverage has been inconsistent in recent years, and some meadows, including one walked on July 1, hadn’t been searched for two years.
“I am always suspicious that there are areas that are completely uncovered by survey effort and could be home to this butterfly still,” she said.
Thomas Bulger, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico who joined the survey, was blunter.
“I think it’s gone,” he said, though he was careful to note that a great deal of ground remains to cover before anyone could call it extinct. “The checkerspot is probably not an isolated incident. We have a lot of other endemics and more common stuff that might start appearing less frequently. And pollination is the basis of all this life we see around us.”
Bulger said he felt somber walking through a good habitat that no longer seems to hold the butterfly.
“You live on this giant sky island, where insects are here and only here.”
— Thomas Bulger
“For all the people of Cloudcroft, I think you should be really proud that you live in a place that’s unlike anywhere else in the world. You live on this giant sky island [where] insects are here and only here. That’s incredible. I think that’s natural heritage that you should be proud of, and is worth fighting for.”
A Warning
Why a single butterfly matters is a question Baine hears often. Her answer is that the checkerspot is a warning.
“If you care about the whole ecosystem, then we should care about any one of these individual species that is endemic and native and, for whatever reason, is disappearing.”
Baine said that one of the main drivers of the decline is the loss of winter snowpack.
The checkerspot’s caterpillars spend the winter nearly full-grown, tucked just beneath the soil, where their metabolism drops and they wait out the cold. Snow acts as an insulator, Baine said, holding that shallow soil at a steady temperature. With less snow, the caterpillars can warm too soon, burn through their energy stores, and starve before spring.
The threat is not the checkerspot’s alone. Baine said three other butterflies native to the Sacramento Mountains haven’t been seen in more than 20 years.
For residents, her ask is simple. Pay attention to what lives here.
“If you see a butterfly, maybe try and figure out what it is. You know, try and pay attention to who lives here, because we’re worried that everything might be declining and disappearing. And the more eyes we can have on this issue, the better. And the better we can figure out what the right method might be to meet everybody’s needs.”
The surveys continue through the end of July.
Watch Dr. Baine describe the search in this video report:
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I can say for .certain, or at least 90% sure I spotted one in front of our house on a milk thistle yesterday. I pointed it out to my wife because I had never seen anything like it. We both agreed it was a beautiful butterfly. Had no idea it was endangered.
Great article and video Jonny!