County joins partnership to save butterfly

By Troy Laack
Tribune Staff Writer

Agreement with DNR will seek federal permit for activating plan

Wood County is joining with the state Department of Natural Resources as a partner in a species and habitat conservation aggreement to implement a habitat conservation plan for the Karner blue butterfly.

    The County Board voted 35-1 Tuesday to enter into the partnership, which will seek an "incidental take" permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

    Paul Westegaard, the county's forest administrator, said the.Karner blue butterfly was listed as an endangered species by the federal government in 1992, and in 1994, "because of a common concern, 27 different groups got together to form a partnership and to take a look at forming a habitat conservation plan" for its recovery.

     Partners include the DNR, state Department of Transportation, several wood-using industries, one conservation group with land

holdings and seven counties with county forests, he said.

    Without the permit, forest-management activities could be restricted on county forest land where the wild blue lupine, the butterfly's only known larval food, is found, the county's resolution said. The Endangered Species Act prohibits the "take" of the Karner blue, which means it cannot be harmed, harassed, killed or collected.

    The DNR is completing a habitat-conservation plan and associated environmental impact statement, and Wood County is saving itself the cost of putting together its own plan and statement by joining the partnership, it said.

    "This incidental take permit is required because we will take some Karner blue butterflies while managing" its habitat, Westegaard said.

    Supervisor Robert Braun, the only dissenting voter, challenged the plan through his query of DNR attorney James Christiansen.

   "Could you tell us some of the reasons why this contract is

necessary," Braun asked. "What is this butterfly's purpose in nature? And what would happen if he did disappear?"

    "Well, of course, since I do legal counsel for endangered resources as well as forestry, it's a community-based situation," Christiansen said. "It's part of the community. But the bigger issue is it's endangered under federal law." Under the permit, a permit can be granted if you incidentally take while you're otherwise in a lawful capacity in your land management, and you don't reduce the likelihood of recovery.

     "We think we can work with this to the point that we recover them and get them unlisted," he said.  "Locally and nationally, to this point, there are no objections."

     Hearings on the plan and statement are planned in March or April in Wisconsin Rapids, Black River Falls and Burnett County before the permit is issued.