Timber cut plan proposed to help

Karner butterfly

By Joe Knight
Leader-Telegram staff

U.S. agency must approve

The Eau Claire County Board has approved a plan to help the endangered Karner blue butterfly by allowing timber cuts in areas where the butterflies live.

    The plan also must be approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before it can go into effect.

    The county is one of 28 partners contributing to the Habitat Conservation Plan for the butterfly in Wisconsin. The partners include other conties and public land holders, paper companies, utilities and several state agencies.

    Without the plan, the federal endangered species act would prohibit logging in areas of the county forest used by the butterflies, which in the long run would be bad for the butterflies, said Scott Horton, county forester.

    Karner blue butterflies depend upon lupine, a flower that thrives after a timber cut, fire or other disturbance that opens up the forest canopy. Lupine grows best the first 15 years after a disturbance, Horton said.

    An "incidental take" permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service would allow timber cuts even though an endangered butterfly might accidentally be killed. The theory is the resulting habitat would improve the butterflies' long-term welfare.

    The idea is to time the timber cuts so there is always some good lupine habitat available in an area, which is called the "shifting mosaic strategy," Horton said. "We'll try to move them from one young stand to another.

    "We'll probably keep the population moving, but we'll keep it in the same general area," Horton said.

    An infestation of insects that killed jack pines in many areas of the county forest from 1992 to 1994 created more Karner habitat.

    The jack pine budworm infestation peaked in 1992-1993. The county did an emergency or salvage cut in the most heavily infested areas to use the wood before it decomposed.

    "The mills helped us out by buying a lot of jack pine at once," Horton said.

    At the time people weren't as aware of the Karners as they are now, but the salvage cuts opened up a lot of land and allowed more lupine to come in, Horton said.

    "We're probably at our peak right now for lupine," said Horton. "The bud-worm epidemic did wonders for the Karner blue. it will be a challenge to keep the number of Karners we have now."

    Dave Lentz, coordinator of the statewide management plan for the Department of Natural Resources, said that although there have been regional habitat conservation plans made for endangered species in California, this is the first statewide habitat plan done for an endangered species.

    Because of the variety of partners, ranging from timber companies to state agencies, coordinating the statewide plan has been interesting but complicated, Lentz said.

    The DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold public hearings on the habitat plan and environmental impact statement later this spring, Lentz said.