Emergency Protection Extended To Rare South Florida Butterfly
VERO BEACH (CBS4) – Emergency protection has been granted to a rare inch long butterfly found only in South Florida.
Last April, the Center for Biological Diversity announced that they planned to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to provide emergency protection for the Miami blue butterfly.
The emergency listing in August under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) immediately protects the butterfly for 240 days. The Wildlife Service has a proposed rule to make the Endangered Species status permanent.
The small Miami blue is a coastal, non-migratory butterfly. Populations once extended from the Dry Tortugas north along the Florida coasts to about St. Petersburg and Daytona. But a loss of habitat from urban sprawl, pesticides, changes in sea levels and predatory iguanas decimated their numbers.
It was believed they were extinct after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but a small population was discovered in Bahia Honda State Park in 1999. Conservationists said that population has disappeared and the species only survives now in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge.
Under the August emergency provisions of the ESA, the cassius blue butterfly, ceraunus blue butterfly, and nickerbean blue butterfly were listed as threatened throughout their natural ranges due to their similarity of appearance to the Miami blue.
The Wildlife Service also issued a special rule that prohibited the collection and commercial trade of these species.
