9/16/2009 9:58:00 AM Prairie burns aim to bring back butterflies
Justin Burnett / The Whidbey Examiner
University of Washington graduate student Eric Delvin shields his face from the intense heat of a prairie fire set on the bluff above Ebey’s Landing. Several controlled burns were lit in Central Whidbey last week as part of Delvin’s doctoral research project, which focuses on restoring native prairie habitat to support reintroduction of five native butterfly species.
Justin Burnett / The Whidbey Examiner
Mark Roth, a prairie restoration specialist with The Nature Conservancy, sets a water line firebreak to the flames started by University of Washington graduate student Eric Delvin on the bluff above Ebey’s Landing
By Justin Burnett Examiner Staff Writer
A Central Whidbey research project that got under way last week was hard to miss as it was marked by columns of smoke rising from prairies scattered throughout Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve.
Workers in yellow fire suits spent most of Thursday and Friday setting controlled fires on lands owned by local and international organizations, with the goal of bringing a some true local color to the landscape.
"It's basically a project to discover new techniques that will allow the reintroduction of native butterflies," said Eric Delvin, a freshwater and coastal marine project manager for The Nature Conservancy.
Delvin, who also is a graduate student at the University of Washington, is working on the research project as part of his doctoral work in ecology. The project, which is being funded by about $250,000 in grants from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, is to span three years and will take place in both north and south Puget Sound locations. While research has just begun on Whidbey, Delvin has been working in Thurston County since 2008.
The primary focus of the project is to reintroduce five species of butterfly thought to have been native to prairies in Central Whidbey: Taylor's checkerspot, the Mardon skipper, the Puget blue, the island marble and the valley silverspot.
While the project's purpose is to reintroduce these lost species, it also aims to answer questions about habitat rehabilitation, such as determining the best techniques for restoring native prairie. With few exceptions, pretty much all of the prairie land in Central Whidbey has at one time been converted to agriculture, Delvin said.
Farming can be destructive to habitat because it replaces native vegetation and removes food sources used by native species. According to Delvin, the prairie seen today is largely populated by European grasses introduced by early settlers.
"It's all they knew," he said.
The prairie 200 years ago was made up of native grasses and flowers, such as camas lily and golden paintbrush - plants that were key to the survival of the five species of butterflies planned for reintroduction.
The controlled burns took place behind the historic Jacob Ebey House on the bluff above Ebey's Landing and at the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies Pacific Rim Campus off Parker Road. Burning existing vegetation will allow Delvin to begin the process of restoring some of that original habitat. The burned areas will be replanted with native seed, then monitored over the next two years.
Adjacent to the burned plots, two other rehabilitation methods are being tested for effectiveness in prairie restoration. One, known as solarization, employs sheets of plastic stretched over the soil to kill existing vegetation. On the other, seed is simply spread over undisturbed prairie in the hopes of replacing existing vegetation.
Learning the most effective methods will help public and private prairie owners restore their own lands. Eventually, if enough habitat is restored, the prairie could support bigger and more diverse butterfly populations, Delvin said.
Burns that were conducted on land owned by Au Sable and the Whidbey Camano Land Trust are not part of Delvin's research project. At Au Sable, Director Robert Pelant noted that the acre of burned prairieland is among the few areas of Central Whidbey that have remained undisturbed for thousands of years.
"It was really never plowed," he said. "It goes back to glacial times."
Prairie burning is something that happens naturally, said Pelant, and is an important part of revitalizing an area.
"Fire is a good thing," he said.
The Land Trust property near Fort Casey also is remnant prairie. It also is believed to have never been plowed, but was likely used for pasture at some time in the past, according to Mark Sheehan, manager of the Land Trust project. The site is unique in that the soil holds more moisture and hosts a larger population of golden paintbrush than the Au Sable property.
"It's probably more what Ebey's Prairie looked like than the Au Sable prairie," he said.
The goal of the burn is to clear out invasive plant species and allow the golden paintbrush to flourish, Sheehan said.
According to Delvin, most people wouldn't notice the results of his project or the work being done by Au Sable and the Land Trust. But considering the mounting pressure of development and the growing need for conservation throughout Puget Sound, including Whidbey Island, the work is vitally important.
"Really, what do we have left on Whidbey to restore?" Delvin said.
