The El Segundo blue butterfly was first placed under the federal Endangered Species Act on June 1, 1976.
Five decades later, there are many South Bay organizations that have helped restore hundreds of acres of habitat, planted over 120,000 native plants and recruited thousands of volunteers, to help protect the fragile and endangered butterfly.
Habitat loss from the Ballona Wetlands to the Palos Verdes Peninsula have been the main culprit when it comes to the near extinction of the butterfly.
(Photo by Robert Casillas,Contributing Photographer)
“Due to it being protected federally, it’s slowly coming back with the help of everyone, from a 3-year-old to a 90-year-old, and all of the conservation groups working together,” said Chris Sarabia, conservation director at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy.
According to the El Segundo Blue Butterfly Coalition website, since restoration efforts began 1975, the El Segundo blue is now found at seven locations instead of two.
“These azure gossamer beauties can be observed in Ballona Wetlands, El Segundo, Dockweiler, Torrance Beach, Point Vicente, Redondo Beach and Malaga Cove,” according to the website. “If the appropriate vegetation is planted to restore the habitat, this butterfly’s population will continue to rebound.”
Mary Simun, vice president, biologist and educator at the South Bay Parkland Conservancy, said that because the butterfly is so small, about the size of a fingernail with a wingspan of about an inch, it has a narrow flying range.
Because of development, its “habitat was chopped up into pieces,” Simun said.
“The pieces were so far apart that the butterfly wouldn’t be able to move from location to location, which is not healthy for its gene pool,” Simun said. “So what we’re trying to do is get enough, what we call patch habitat, little pockets, that are close enough together that the El Segundo blue could conceivable breed along its entire range, from Ballona in the north, to Palos Verdes in the south.”
A vital part of habit restoration is the planting of sea cliff buckwheat as part of the creation of wildlife corridors along the coast.
The sea cliff buckwheat is the “only host plant for the caterpillar, the larval stage of this little butterfly,” Simun said.
“We plant approximately 30% of that particular species in the areas where we’re doing restoration, where that butterfly used to live and could live again,” Simun said.
That area would be the greenbelt in Hermosa Beach, the bluffs in Redondo Beach, among other areas, Simun said, but the are hampered by development.
“We can’t remove those houses, and we can’t change what they’ve done in the marina, and things like that, so we’re trying to cleverly using public lands when we can,” Simun said. “Then also getting private landowners involved and businesses and homeowners who live in that strip to plant this sea cliff buckwheat, so that we could potentially provide host plants for it to reconnect these what were basically three pockets of populations.”
An important early development with the protection of the El Segundo blue butterfly was the Dunes Restoration Project near the Los Angeles International Airport in 1986, according to a South Bay Parkland Conservancy press release.
“Because a surviving population of El Segundo Blue butterflies occupied the dunes west of the airport, the land was preserved rather than developed, becoming one of the butterfly’s most important protected habitats,” according to the press release.
Olivia Jenkins, manager of Scientific Programs for the Friends of Ballona Wetlands, said each year they collect seeds from the existing seacliff buckwheat from the wetland and “grow those in our nursery on site near the restoration areas,” which is then used to restore the dune habitats where the El Segundo blue flourishes.
“What’s amazing is that for many years there, the (butterfly) was absent from the Ballona site but after this extensive restoration and planting hundreds and hundreds of the seacliff buckwheat, the butterfly returned, and it returned in about 2013.”
Now the butterfly population at Ballona, “seems relatively stable,” Jenkins said.
Managing invasive vegetation, like the non-native ice plant, which “took hold of all the dune habitat,” is instrumental in habitat restoration, Jenkins said.
“The ice plant stabilizes the dunes, which I guess I typically would think of as a positive thing, but historically these coastal dunes were not stagnant, and so they would kind of fluctuate, and that was a natural part of the habitat,” Jenkins said. “But the ice plant actually prevents that from happening.”
Jenkins said there are at least two acres of restored habitat currently inhabited by the El Segundo blue.
“There’s been about 12 acres that for the past 20 years we’ve worked on removing really invasive vegetation, the ice plant, also some non-native trees, mustards,” Jenkins said.
Three years after the ESA was enacted, the El Segundo blue was one of the first invertebrate species to gain federal protection, along with six other butterflies, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.
The Palos Verdes blue butterfly is also federally endangered, Sarabia said, since 1980, and while its territory overlaps with the El Segundo blue, they do not fly at the same time.
“There’s so many other species that rely on the habitat that we’re all restoring together,” Sarabia said. “The butterfly is a good introduction for folks to learn that Los Angeles, while a lot of people see us as a concrete jungle, there’s endangered species just like this that are so special and are slowly coming back, despite all that concrete. There are still some wild areas out here.”
While June and July are normally the months when the El Segundo blue is most active, the butterfly has already started making an appearance in May, Simun said.
Because of that, the SBPC is starting its nature walks earlier this year, with the first one taking place on Saturday, June 6. The PVPLC is also hosting its first nature walk on June 6. The Friends of the Ballona Wetlands also host bi-weekly community habitat restoration events.
“The butterflies are already out and it’s time by the blooming of sea cliff buckwheat,” Simun said. “When that plant blooms, that’s when the chrysalis opens and the adult emerges that’s been sitting in the soil and hibernating for 10, 11 months.”
After taking nectar for food, Simun added, it reproduces, lays eggs, and the larva eats the sea cliff buckwheat, but only the sea cliff buckwheat.
“After a short period of time, a matter of days, it forms a chrysalis again, and then waits for the following year to come out and continue the life cycle,” Simun said. “It’s a very unusual life cycle for an insect.”
Simun said their group continues to restore habitat northward by removing ice plant and expanding to the Redondo Beach Pier and beyond.
“We’re going to move all the way up to the pier, so that we can continue this long strip connecting Palos Verdes to the pier and Redondo,” Simun said. “Which then, it’s a fairly short hop if we get some other natives in some other places, like for example, by the power plant, then they’d be able to theoretically get to the greenbelt and be able to move north and south through those two cities.”
Observationally, Simun said, “there is no question,” that the El Segundo blue population is increasing since “if you build it, they will come.”
“They are increasing their populations, and they’re moving through these new areas,” Simun said. “They’re so small they can only fly, estimates between a quarter and a half mile, so they can’t go very far. So these are animals that are going to stay where they are in this small area, and hopefully move up and down this little coastal path that we’re creating, but they’re their local residents and their populations are definitely increasing.”
“I am extremely grateful to be part of this 50-year journey, bringing together so many over the years in common purpose, to help an endangered species in our own backyard,” said SBPC vice president of Rewilding Projects, Jim Montgomery, in the press release. “Each organization and individual that has worked on this effort has been critical in restoring and linking native habitat for the endangered El Segundo Blue.”
For more information, visit southbayparks.org, ballonafriends.org, esbcoalition,org, or pvplc.org.