While Center for Native Ecosystems is hard at work promoting protections for threatened and endangered critters here in the Southern Rockies, I thought I’d highlight the protection efforts taking place across the Western United States and around the globe on behalf of two very distant cousins.

In Taiwan this week, officials began preparations for the seasonal migration of the milkweed butterfly.  The Taiwanese government has spent years tracking the migratory pattern of these creatures and will seal off a section of highway in order to ensure their protection during peak travel times.  Nets and ultraviolet lights will also be set up to guide the butterflies safely across the busy motorway.  A spokesperson for the National Freeway Bureau admitted that the highway closure will most likely cause congestion, but stated that, “Human beings need to coexist with the other species, even if they are tiny butterflies.”

On this side of the globe, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently took tentative steps toward protecting another endemic butterfly: the Sand Mountain blue butterfly.  The butterfly, existing only in the sand dunes of Nevada, is threatened by the encroachment of off-road recreational vehicles on the delicate dunes.  Just last week, officials closed trails on approximately six square miles of public land after years of petitioning by conservation groups to have the butterfly listed as endangered (a ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials on the butterfly’s endangered status is expected soon).  This stopgap measure is intended to appease both conservationists and off-road vehicle enthusiasts (an estimated 50,000 visitors per year) by closing some, not all, of the trails.  In fact, the BLM’s closures leave the main sand dunes open to motorized use.

While the Sand Mountain blue butterfly will certainly benefit from the limited sand dune closures, the BLM could learn something from the efforts of the Taiwanese government to protect the milkweed butterfly.  Despite the relatively high cost in time, effort and drivers’ frustration, the Taiwan government recognizes that, having already lost one species of milkweed butterfly to extinction, saving these tiny creatures is about valuing all forms of life, large and small.  We can only hope that the BLM, in Nevada and across our region, will begin to take into consideration the future of biodiversity throughout the west and start thinking of more than just the bottom line.