Description
The Oregon Zoo bid a fond farewell to hundreds of its tiniest residents recently.
Zoo conservation specialists and their partners released 1,304 Oregon silverspot larvae as part of an effort to save this beautiful and threatened Northwest species. The caterpillars were reared at the zoo and will complete their transformation into butterflies this summer along the Oregon coast.
Once common in coastal grasslands from Northern California up into British Columbia, the Oregon silverspot remains today in just a few isolated populations. Wildlife biologists are currently working to establish additional populations at Nestucca Bay and Saddle Mountain, where a rare and delicate flower — the early blue violet — still blooms in abundance.
Early blue violets are the main food source for the silverspot caterpillars as they mature into adult butterflies, and the Oregon coastal range is one of the few remaining areas where these flowers grow in quantities large enough to sustain a butterfly population. Elsewhere, they have been choked out by invasive weeds and forest succession.
“Oregon silverspots can only thrive in certain environments, and much of their former habitat has been lost,” said zoo conservation propagation specialist Julia Low. “But we can still give them a fighting chance at survival.”