Butterflies are not grizzly bears: Lepidoptera conservation in practice

Abstract

Many of the well-known and intuitive practices from conservation of large mammals do not apply to butterflies. The different body size, lifespan, reproductive potential, and habitat associations of butterflies produce a different series of guidelines for conservation that may conflict with commonly held attitudes and approaches from conservation of larger species. Using a series of case studies from the federally listed butterflies in California, we present a series of lessons for butterfly conservation that emphasizes the different approaches that butterfly conservation requires. These include: that habitats found surrounded by cities are important; that connectivity between habitats may not require a corridor or can be provided by human intervention; that disturbance, including removal of native plants, may be essential to maintain butterfly food plants; that a remote risk of incidental take of early stages of butterflies is often worth taking in the interest of habitat management; that current distributions of taxa may not be their best habitat historically; and that microclimatic and microtopographic variation is important at scales humans rarely consider.