It’s the little things.
In 1852, an observant naturalist described the Xerces Blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces) in writing for the first time. The insect with periwinkle-blue wings “was of great interest to butterfly experts because individuals exhibited incredible variation in their wing patterns.”
That quote comes from a website that tracks extinctions. By 1941, the Xerces Blue butterfly had ceased to exist:
What happened? Development rolled into the sand dunes of San Francisco, where the butterfly exclusively made its home by feeding upon plants in the genera Lotus as a caterpillar and Lupinus as an adult. While some of the lupines apparently survived, human disturbance eliminated the lotus plants that the specialized larvae fed upon. No babies, no grownups.
How many centuries, how many millennia had the Xerces Blue experienced on Earth? Scientists believe butterflies evolved in the Cretaceous Period, the Age of Flowering Plants, 65 million to 135 million years ago, according to the American Museum of Natural History. We can’t say for sure when the Xerces Blue came onto the scene, but it appears to have taken less than a hundred years to disappear after being identified by a European expert.
The Xerces Blue is believed to have been the first butterfly to go extinct in North America during the Anthropocene—our current period, a time when humankind touches nearly every living thing on our planet.
In 1971, when a lepidopterist named Robert Michael Pyle founded a nonprofit group to protect increasingly vulnerable invertebrates, he decided to name it after this unlucky butterfly. Thus was born the Xerces Society.
Last April, when I started writing this newsletter, I promised to send net proceeds from paid subscriptions to this group (“net” because Substack takes a cut), and I’m getting ready to do so before the end of the year. (Ahem.)
I chose the Xerces Society because I expect they are less well known to readers than larger (and wealthier) NGOs like World Wildlife Fund or The Nature Conservancy. Yet their work is critically important and lies at the heart of how backyard stewards endeavor to defend natural communities close to home.
The most famous advocate for what I call backyard stewardship is probably Douglas Tallamy, a University of Delaware professor and entomologist who in 2007 wrote a book entitled Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants that inspired so many to embark on this journey. But of course the work of environmental protection has many mothers and fathers. Pyle, a lepidopterist, began sounding the alarm for arthropods and other invertebrates just a decade after Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring—and 35 years before Tallamy’s book.
Pyle tells the story of having learned during study in England of futile efforts to rescue another blue butterfly, the British large blue (Maculinea arion). The passing of that insect, in Pyle’s words, sparked “a new vigilance,” which he and others helped promulgate on this side of the Atlantic.
Invertebrates, as every naturalist knows, constitute an essential part of the web of life, providing ecological services such as pollination, seed dispersal, soil creation and maintenance, nutrient recycling, water filtration, and provision of food for animals higher up the food chain. Their numbers are now in shocking decline, and if they disappear so may many other living things, including humans.
The Xerces Society attempts to arrest this catastrophic trend in a number of ways (quoted here directly from their website):
Protecting Pollinators: Working with diverse partners to restore and expand habitat and further the science of pollinator conservation.
Conserving Endangered Species: Engaging in education, research, community science, and advocacy to protect at-risk species and their habitats.
Reducing Pesticide Use & Impacts: Reducing reliance on pesticides by supporting the diverse natural systems that reduce pest problems.
Advocating for Change: Engaging in activism, policy discussions, and other forms of advocacy on behalf of the "little things that run the world.”
Spreading the Word: Engaging and informing a diverse audience through science-based publications, outreach, blog posts, social media, and more.
They also provide services such as monitoring invertebrates, training public servants tasked with preservation efforts, and advising large landholders on conservation planning.
Next year, I will probably take their Pollinator Protection Pledge, which works on the honor system and includes the following components (again quoted from their website):
Grow a variety of bee-friendly flowers that bloom from spring through fall.
Protect and provide bee nests and caterpillar host plants.
Avoid using pesticides, especially insecticides.
Talk to my neighbors about the importance of pollinators and their habitat.
I hope readers of this journal will consider doing these things regardless of whether they take the pledge. In the meantime, to support this critical work you can donate directly to the Xerces Society or become a paid subscriber to this newsletter this week.
Remember: It’s the little things.
My too-infrequent massage therapist, Claire, has embraced natural gardening and works hard to reduce her environmental footprint. She also works hard on my back. On a recent visit, she showed off her spectacular Christmas tree (shared here with permission), which she decorated exclusively with flowers from her garden that she pressed and dried starting in early spring. Notably, she doesn’t even use ornament hooks!