April 12, 2024 • 31 mins
Spring is fluttering by! It’s April, and that means Butterfly Jungle is currently open at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. In this episode, we are talking with the McKinney Family Curator of Invertebrates, Paige Howorth, about butterflies and butterfly conservation. We know so little about invertebrates in comparison to other wildlife, yet they are the backbone of our ecosystem.The butterfly population faces many challenges, and hosts Rick and Marco learn from Paige about how we can all help our fluttery friends survive and thrive.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, I'm Rich Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
What elsey s World?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Marco Wentz Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique
stories of wildlife from around the world and uncovered fascinating
animal facts. This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby
Studio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, an international nonprofit
conservation organization which oversees the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Ooh, Rick, I can't believe it.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We are already a couple weeks into spring, and here
in San Diego the month of April, it's always that,
you know, preview.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Of summer, kind of thee oh, I know what you mean, Marco.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Perfect temperatures, blue skies all day, and all the animals
the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park are just
loving every moment.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And I am too.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Right, And when this episode comes out, Butterfly Jungle will
be in full flood at the Safari full flutter.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Nice, thank you, that's actually very true.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Butterfly Jungle opened in March and will be available this
year all the way to make twelve. So now is
the time to go enjoy one of the more impressive
seasonal experiences here in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Oh man, it is impressive, isn't it. When I was
working there, I always loved how as soon as you
walked in you were immediately transported to this vibrant rainforest.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Jungle habits out.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, I know, right, and it's filled with colorful flowers
and butterflies and of course those soothing bird.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Costs you got to bring the birds into.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, you're right, Marco, it really is something special and
the birds do add to the ambiance absolutely. And for
anyone who was with us last season, you know, we
were able to speak to one of our wildlife care
specialists in our entomology department last year about the mind
blowing steps a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Ooh, butterfly soup.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Yes, but you know it's funny, I know, but you know,
just to clarify everyone, for those who've not heard that
episode from last season, butterfly soup is not a soup
people eat. I mean, there will be no butterfly manuthal here, everyone,
thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I mean it was an analogy made to.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Explain that the liquid inside the chrystalis is actually a
caterpillar and will become the butterfly later on.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yep, it's true. It's such an eye opening conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Honestly, I think that episode has generated the most feedback
from last season.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I mean it makes sense to me, who does it.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Love butterflies exactly?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And although a lot of people love butterflies, not too
many people know about the really amazing conservation work being done.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
For them and a egle.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
This is why we are heading to the San Diego
Zo to find out more about butterflies, butterfly conservation, and
whateverone can do to help our fluttery friends.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
I am Page Howarth. I am the McKinney family Curator
of Invertebrates.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
A lot of people are very excited it's springtime. We've
got butterfly jungle going on. But really, as much as
butterfly Jungle is wonderful and people can look at the
butterflies up close, there's a lot more going on with
butterflies and vertebrates in general, as you were sharing with
us earlier, but with butterfly conservation. Bring everybody up to speed.
Where are we what's going on with that?
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Butterflies and moths? Don't forget about.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Moths, and actually we can not forget about the moths,
a much.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
More significant group, do it.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
They're a hugely important insect group, and given what we
know about insects, it's kind of astonishing. Honestly, we barely
know anything at all about insects because insects are such
a huge group, and of all the species that have
been assessed, it's estimated that only about one percent of
insects have been assessed, So every single bird that's known
(03:32):
to science has been assessed for their conservation status. All
the other vertebrate groups are very close to one hundred
percent assessment. And then when you look at insects, there's
just this great unknown which is challenging, disheartening, but also
you know, like something.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That we need to look at.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Let me ask real quick, as someone who I know
is Deddie hit her life to invertebrates.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
We've known each other for very long time and it's
always impressed with your work. Why do you suppose that
is or do you know why that is that it's
only one percent that it seems like this is like
vastly overlooked but yet so very important group of living
creatures on this planet.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Well, part of it, I think is a visibility thing.
You know, it's much easier to care about pandas.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Right right, right, Yeah, they're fuzzy.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
Right at the bed, but.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
You know, but it's easier. They're adorable and their conservation
status is important. But insects are like doing all this
dirty work. Most people don't see them. There's all these
decomposers that are breaking down all this organic matter. A
lot of these are species that people would not care
to get close to, like hotcroaches, right, So there's also
a pr problems like insects. You know, people don't engage
(04:40):
as much with these animals, so in many ways they're
kind of like these silent partners, just doing all the
things and not getting thanked for it.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
It to that point.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I know, there's a quote you've shared with me years
ago about should these inverterates go away? It's a matter
of weeks till the planet basically folds in on itself, right.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
They're just the backbone of every ecosystem. So they're providing
food and I mean the biomass of insects is staggering,
so many things eat them. They're providing these decomposition services.
Speaker 6 (05:08):
Pollination.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Everybody is aware of how important pollination is, and really
bees are the heavy hitters for pollinating food for crops
and things like that and predation. I mean, you can't
have all these millions and millions and millions of insects
and not have something that's going to eat them as well.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I want to pull this back.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
It was such a cool fact, and we're talking about
early to your point, I was reading on our journal
by the way, there's a really cool article about pollinators.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I hope everyone can read.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
But it says that a foraging grizzly bear can eat
up to thirty thousand army cut worm moths a day
in the summertime. A big, large, carnivorous bear that is
relying on the teeniest, tiniest little animal in that ecosystem right.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Exactly moths again, yea, that's incredible.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
What is it that you and our teams and our
partners across California are doing right now for which species
of butterfly as a moths?
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Well, we have a great partnership with the US Fish
and Wildlife Service, and you know, in California alone, there's
sixteen federally listed butterflies or.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Moths and federally listed means.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Under the endangered Species Act, so they're either threatened or endangered, but.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Most of the public doesn't even know we have that
many butterflies moths here writing.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Yeah, totally, and most people don't know that San Diego
is this a great biodiversity hotspot. And so we're working
with a couple of local species. One of them is
the Keno checker spot butterfly, which is found in southeast
San Diego and into Mexico. And then we also work
with the Luguna Mountain skipper, which is kind of an
alpine meadow butterfly. There's only one population left in the
(06:40):
Palomar Mountain region, and so we're working to reintroduce that
species to its namesake range and the laugunas.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
So what we do is we pull.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
In females that we think have made it during flight season,
which is going to be within the next month month
or two for the skipper, and we bring them back
to the butterfly Conservation Lab, which is a dedicated facility
that we have here at the zoo. We set them up,
encourage them to lay eggs, and we rear those larvae
to a certain life stage. Same for the Keno checker
(07:10):
spot butterflies. They go into basically a period of diapause
during the summer when their host plants dry up.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
What is diapause?
Speaker 5 (07:18):
We so diapause is a period of rest. And the
poster child for insic diapause is the monarch butterfly. Okay, right,
when they're in diapause, they're hanging in trees, either on
the coast of California for the western population or down
in central Mexico for the eastern population. But for the
kenochecker spot butterfly it's the larva, and for the lagoon
a mountain skipper it's the pupa. So it's different for
(07:40):
every insect, which is also makes it really.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Tongo of species out there, right, that's crazy.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah, So you can't just yeah, we're doing head starting,
and headstarting is just kind of getting them to a
certain developmental stage and then putting them out into whichever
reintroduction scenario that you want to do. But you can't
just say we know how to do keno checker spots.
You could say we can do another checker spot very similarly,
or a silver spot maybe, but skippers are a totally
(08:07):
different family and they have totally different life history, and
so it's kind of like starting over every time.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wow, that's a lot of luck.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, I was just going to say a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But also, you guys, I got to point out the
visual or any of you kids listening right now picturing
these scientists out there.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I'm picturing these like butterfly nets. You like, well, maybe
what we did as a kid, but this could be
a job. Like you got inspired right and why this?
Speaker 4 (08:27):
And look at what you're doing right now. I mean
it's incredible. And by the way, we're in a page's
office right now.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I'm looking around. There's so much cool stuff in your office.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
It reminds you of the colors and the vibrancy of
insects too. Like you guys know, I'm the bird guy,
and I'm always hyping up animals that maybe don't get
the platform. And I speak to that and I our
reps how peeps say the same thing. But the under
underdog has got to be the insects.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Absolutely. But just kudos to you and your team.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Just the diversity of the animals that you work with
is incredible.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
Oh and I have the best team. And I'm not
just somebody who says I have the best team.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
No, I do.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
And everybody is really committed to learning more because everything
we do here, not just butterfly conservation, but everything that
we do, we have to create so many systems. We
have to figure things out. Sometimes we have to figure
out what the insects eat. Sometimes we have to figure
out what they're going to lay their eggs in. Again,
it's that great unknown, and that's what makes it so fun.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Temperatures and humidity is everyone's different, and there's so many
intervals where things can go wrong.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
You've got depending on the species you've got up to,
like horseshye crowds, you know, sixteen or seventeen molts. Okay,
I hope it works out every time, because a lot
can go wrong in between. That's a very vulnerable stage.
And so it's really a credit to kind of the
tinkering and the curiosity and just wanting to learn more
about these animals so that they thrive.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And anybody who's listening has not been to base camp yet.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You get a little bit of a taste of what
pages team does when you go to the Spineless Marvels building.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
It is amazing on so many levels.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
But I want to get back to the conservation of
the butterflies where I feel like we can.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
No, it's right, it's right, that's beautyful sort the place
right there, you go.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
That's I know, I know, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
So we got to the point where your team has
brought these different species in, get them to their different
spaces where they need to be.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
What's the next step after that?
Speaker 5 (10:17):
So we bring the females into the lab and that's
a pretty intense period of management because we want to
make sure that they have everything that they need to
be productive and to lay eggs, because that's the goal
of this, and so we give them a lot of
sunning sessions. We make sure that they have ready access
to food and water, and then every day we go
(10:37):
through their habitats and we pull out any eggs and
for the good a mountain skippers for example, that's really
really difficult.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Really, Yes, how big are the I was going to say,
I'll start there.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
So I have a picture of the skipper eggs on
their host plant, Herkalia clevelandy eye Okay, And I have
I think it's a quarter right now to it. And
you know there's the like in God, we trust in inscription,
the egg will fit inside the oh of the god
w in the coin. So they're really hard to see.
They're like kind of a cream color, and they're laid singly.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh my gosh, not in clusters.
Speaker 6 (11:14):
Not even in clusters. Youno make it easier. They lay
their eggs.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Clusters and the're like, yes, thank you so much. So
it's pretty obvious when you've got an egg cluster. But
the skippers, Yeah, so it's a completely different system for them. Wow.
So we're searching for eggs, we're setting eggs up with
the host plant. We set them up like pretty minimally
so that it's easier for us to see what's going on. Like,
so we don't have to always have a lot of
(11:40):
used host plant to clean out, because if you're looking
for tiny caterpillars, it just takes ten times longer if
you have a lot of leaf material to go through.
So this is incredibly like painstaking and labor intensive thing.
It takes a certain kind of person.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I do you want to do that?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
A lot of those people, I think it's those people
who will finish a puzzle point.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm not one of those, but I feel that I
get that.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Yeah, But we have some artists we have some people
that you know there that are artists and entomologists.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
So again, just the skippers I'm talking a lot about them,
is that their behavior is really interesting. You know when
they're when they're at a certain stage and their development
maybe like second in star. So in stars are the
developmental time between molts basically, so they're frasts, which is
what insect poop is called frass.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Can you spell that for us? F R A S
S frass Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
So we're monitoring frass all the time because frast tells
us that they're eating. FRAST tells us when they start
to back off of eating if it's the checker spots.
Because when they start to back off eating, we know
that they're getting ready to go into diapause, and we
start giving them different materials to hide out in cool cool.
And so for the skippers, they make these little sleeping
bags out of their leaf material, right, so it's the
host plant, and they use silk to weave together leaves
(12:58):
so that they can hide and they do concealed feeding.
So not only are they tiny, they don't want you
to look at them.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
The introvert of the butterflies exactly.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
So the first season that we did the Skippers, our
team is looking for the head capsule, and the head
capsule and the lagund amount skipper larvae is the only
part that's hard. The rest of it is like a
soft caterpillar, right, So that's the only part of the
exos skeleton that's hard, and it's black, and at that
stage it's the same size as they're frass. So we
(13:33):
have people and we need to know. We want to
know how long is it taking them to get from
first to second instar, from second to third, all those things,
because this is like really the first time we've been
able to examine that and manage care. So our team
was going through and looking for head capsules versus frass
under the scope, just to tell if anyone molted that day.
(13:54):
Because you can't see inside the sleeping bags, you don't
want to disturb them. So again, it's like developing them
methodology to know where you are and how you can
either keep doing what you're doing or just pivot and
do something different to move things forward.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I want our audience to realize what you're describing is
you and your team basically are writing the book on
how to care for these individuals and then how to
get them back out in the wild. Is what you're
saying is because no one else has done this, and
so literally each part of what you just described is
your team discovering how to do these things and then
(14:30):
just to your point, and if it doesn't work, we've
got to pivot. I was sitting here, it's like, wow,
it's like, you know, this is it's happening right here,
you know, for this species and someone's the great unknown.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
You know, that's incredible to me because in the world
normally you think of like there may be corners in
the Amazon that's still on Discovery, but probably not. Maybe
there is underwater deep dive, but insects, I mean, that's
really the great unknown, right the so much and just
kudos to the team and a well amazing work you
guys are doing.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
For that well yeah, I mean, and it's not just us.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
There's other organizations and other places working with different species
and we all learn from each other.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
For the skippers, there was.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Kind of an NC two management trial that happened a
few years ago, but there's really no substitute for having
a group of people that are just devoted to that
one thing.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Every single day eyes on it.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yeah, and so we do all get you know, like, hey,
at Woodland Park they're working with silver spots. Did you
know that you can get an Oregon silver spot to
enroll it's proboscis if you dip it's feed and water.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
Well, guess what that doesn't.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Work for check respots to miss let's miss them. So
it's like again, you know you have a handhold because
somebody's done something with something similar and then you try
to like mantle up on that and you're like, no,
that didn't work. You're building this methodology with the help
of your colleagues and partners, and you're moving in that direction.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
So I'm glad you brought that up because it is
just like with the other conservation mark when I've talked
to other people about it's not just us, it's not
just one team. It's a collective of people working together
sharing information. And that's so important to think for the
world to understand that it's not a competition. We're all
in this for the reason of conservation and saving these species.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So thank you for bringing that.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Yes, yeah, prates to that, and I mean not only
the scientists to reach all of us here in the
Alliance and other collaborators, but the community too.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Right where we're just talking about things that the public
can do.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
The obvious one is come to Spindless Marvels in base
Camp and visit that. It's my favorite spot at the zoo.
I love that we can offer this experience for everyone.
But we were talking about some other aspects, right that
maybe people can do to help out insects in general.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Do you mind bringing this up a little bit for
our guests.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
So. I think the lowest of low hanging fruit is
don't use pesticides in your garden.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
I think a lot of people think of pesticide problems
that insects are experiencing are like agricultural problems, like these
broad application problems, which they are, But there's also this
real issue with home gardening pesticide usage. And I think
sometimes it's like, well, if I use a little bit
more than the product describes, you know, I'll kill them
(16:58):
extra dead.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
They're not coming back this time.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah, And I mean I get it. Gardens are such
a source of tranquility and peace and they're so beautiful,
but it just be such a great thing if everyone
decided not to use pesticides or to use some organic
alternatives to managing pests in the garden. And then along
those lines, just returning your landscapes at your house back
to native landscapes. You think about like California is incredible,
(17:25):
and you could say the same no matter where you are,
you will have incredible wildlife in your backyard, and they
grew up with certain plants, so it's just kind of
a no brainer to start making that transition. If you
have a lot of exotic plants that require a lot
of water and require a lot of pest management, think
about what you can do to eventually transform that. We
did this at our house, and it's like every spring
(17:46):
of Oh, it's so exciting, what's going to happen this year,
because not everything comes up the same year, and some
stuff goes whoa, it's all the way over there now,
you know, And so you have all these surprises. But
once you get those native nectar plants, especially nectar is
so important to so many animals, you're going to start
seeing your pollinators come in. Then you're going to start
seeing your birds come in, and everybody else is going
to be like, I belong here, you know, because this
(18:08):
is a native habitat. So that's one thing that I
always tell people. It's not easy to do, and you're
going to have a blast doing it, and there's so
many resources to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, I mean it seems like less work, you save money.
It makes sense water, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
And I want to go back real quick.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
The reason we think well, pesticides, why that in the
general mind, I'm getting rid of pests. But it's worth
noting that the chemicals that make up the pesticides, they
have no discrimination. It will kill all insects and bugs.
And one thing we had talked about before too. When
it's used all the time and home sometimes overused, it
ends up then getting washed away, goes into the neighbor's yard,
goes into waterways, it gets into the storm drains, which
(18:42):
go to creeks and rivers in the ocean. And we're
finding now a lot of these pesticides and these chemicals
that make them up are being found.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Far far away from where they were applied. They don't
just break down and disappear.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
So that's part of the equation is understanding that, yes,
you're targeting what you consider a pest in your yard,
but the pesticide is discriminate on who it impacts, and
even birds like the hummingbirds sometimes will be affected by
these things as.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
Well, that's right.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
And the systemic pesticides like neo nicotinoid pesticides, what happens
typically is it's a coating on the seed, and so
the seed goes into the ground, the plant grows up,
and that pesticide is expressed in every tissue of that plant.
So if you're a bee, or you're a hummingbird, or
you're a butterfly and you're coming for nectar, it's going
(19:27):
to be expressed in the nectar as well. If you're
a songbird, you nicotinoids or having devastating effects on so
populations as well. So it's just one of those things
it's like you don't have to you know, if everyone
just said I'm not going to do that, it would
make a huge difference just the basics for like protecting
wildlife and keeping our ecosystems you know intact.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, it's a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, And so it's a matter of paying attention to
what you're putting in your garden as far as any
sort of chemicals and things like that, but also what
you brought in, which is great look at your native
plants the options there because you're bringing in those birds
and those butter flies and everything else. Let's say someone
is in the pathway of the migrating monarch, is there
something they can do to help the monarchs out in
their travels?
Speaker 6 (20:09):
Nectar?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Nectar.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Nectar is key, and you know, we had a really
tough year for monarchs. For the Eastern monarchs this past season,
they were down about sixty percent. It's the second lowest
population since they've been monitored for all these years. So
nectar is really important. Obviously it's important to have a milkweed,
of course, but often you know, adults are searching for
(20:32):
those resources when they're on their way down to Mexico
and when they're on their way back laying those eggs.
So that's super important. Just again having a native garden,
having plants that are going to bloom at the right time.
The phonology or the timing of things is really important
for butterflies and other pollinators. And with climate change it's
getting offset, you know, and so things are coming up
or not coming up, they're coming up early and by
(20:53):
the time the butterflies get there, it's already spent. So
nectar's that's another just no brainer, just plant nectar.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Yeah. I mean I remember being a kid in Escondillo,
a town north of San Diego here, and just seeing
those butterflies when I was a kid, and I just
get so excited and troll around every year. But then
there was a point I just wouldn't really see them anymore,
and it was really heartbreaking. You know, there was a
time here you'd see hundreds and hundreds of monarchs flying
over San Diego, but we're just we're not seeing that
any longer.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
So San Diego has changed a lot here for sure.
I mean we still monitor over wintering sites here for
Western monarchs y, but we typically don't see a lot
of butter I mean I have a site here by
the zoo that I do every year and.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
There's nothing nothing.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Yeah, And it's been like that for a really long time.
Some of the more northern sites there are and there
were butterflies in la and Pendleton last year, which is great.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
But we also have a resident population in San Diego,
which complicates things. Going back to the like what should
I plant? There's a ton of great resources. The Zorca
Society for invertebrate conservation as regional planting guides. So you
just go and you can find where you live and
what are the right things to have in your garden.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
From what was that again, Zeres, it's x.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
E r CEES and they're a nonprofit invertebrate conservation organization.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
That's a resource.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Yeah. There's also the Monarch Joint Venture, which is a
collaborative where partners with Monarch Joint Venture and with CERCES
and they have just an incredible wealth of information just
on monarchs.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
So people can visit and learn a lot there.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Cool and I was saying, can visit us to you, right,
I mean we got butterfly Jungle happens that it's there's
plant Trader. There's really cool native plant species out there
that they sell, you know, so that could be an
easy go take the kids and do the butterflies, get
some native plants.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Well, as we're starting to wrap this up page, I
just want to open up the opportunity the last stages
of the butterfly conservation. You talked us through the incredible
detailed work your team has to go through. What's the
other side of it. What are you landing on on
the other side of all this when they go back
out into the wild, or are we building a population
in the zoo environment first, or what does that.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Last step for those butterflies.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
So we're doing head starting, so we don't hold anything
back for like a year round breeding program at this stage.
The Kenot checker spot butterfly is they lay a lot
of eggs and we are really successful in the lab
at kind of getting a lot of eggs from them.
So we have lots of larvae that we're managing. I
was just doing a field check a couple of weeks
ago and I brought this back in my binocular bag.
(23:21):
So these are the vessels that we use to put
them out in the habitat. So basically I'm holding in
my hand a finch seed feeder. It's a wire feeder.
It's got a top that pops off.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
A little bit bigger than a softball. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Inside of it is a peat pot, so those like
gardening peat pots that kind of break down and they've
got big holes punched in the peat pot. And then
there's a date on it, so it says twenty twenty
one and five on both the top and bottom, and
so we place the larvae inside the peat pots and
again they're asleep. Basically, they're in diapause, so they don't
know what's happening. We try to do this in I mean,
(23:57):
we used to say we try to do this outside
of fire season, but it's kind of like not every
so it typically happens in November. But what we want
is for them to get all the cues in the habitat,
so they have been safe in the lab for the
first part of their life and they've been in diapause
for a couple months at this point, so we put
them in the we call these pods. These are the
(24:18):
release pods, and we put them in the pod and
then we wire them to a shrub in the San
Diego National Wildlife Refuge at whichever site we're releasing on,
and we have six sits right now for the keno
and so they sit there until it starts raining. And
they've been placed within a patch of Plantago erecto, which
is their host plant. So we have partners from Wild
(24:39):
Spring Ecology that are doing the mapping, so Sean will
go out and find the juiciest patches that appear to
be like coming up for the host plant, and that's
where we'll put the pods, and so we wire them
in and then we just start monitoring them. As the
rain starts falling, the plantago starts coming up, and they
start to leave the pods.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So they wake up.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
They malt like, okay, it's a look, I have everything
I need right here.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Is it the rain that's trigging their movement the behavior,
or is it the flowering or the change in the
plant that's triggering it or is it both?
Speaker 5 (25:08):
It's probably both, we don't know exactly. We can make
this happen in managed care too, with moisture and host plants.
Oh okay, So they're emerging from the pods and they're
feeding and we're monitoring their growth. And for Keno, some
of them are going to complete their development at this point,
so they're going to become adults themselves. Some of them
are going to go back into diapause. And as a
(25:28):
result of doing this work, releasing them in this way,
because we check them after the season is over, after
everything is dried and everybody's either dead or back in diapause,
depending on if they matured or not, we know that
they don't have to break diapause to survive really, so
we've looked inside these things and gone, hey, there's still
(25:49):
some larvae diapause in here over two years, which is
crazy because they're only like six millimeters two years at release.
So they have these strategies to deal with the unpredictable conditions.
A year ago, it's hot, it's dry with fire, and
it's kind of a cool bad hedging mechanism for them.
So that's the process for Kino. We rear them up,
we hang on to them until we feel like it's
(26:10):
safe to put them out into the habitat, and we
put them out in the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge. We
monitor them after the season's over, and we count the
abundance on the sites afterwards. For the skippers, it's been
two years that we've been working on this and we're
still trying to figure out the best way to do it.
So the first year, we rid them all the way
to pupy and we put them out as pupy and
(26:31):
similar containers. The last time we did it last year,
we put them out as third in star larvae so
that they could find their own places to kind of
huddle up for their period of dialas because they make
those shelters in their Horkalia host plant. They're really hard
to find, and so you know, releasing them is these
(26:51):
little third in star larvae because they need to make
choices about like where they're going to pupey and they
live in this high elevation which kind of flooded in
June unexpectedly. You know, so we have all these conditions
that it seemed like it was better to let them
make those choices. Keno make choices whether they're going to
(27:12):
come out of diapause or not. But the skippers were
still kind of trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
That's so cool.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, Rad, that's incredible. Good job you guys, Kudos thinks.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
One last question I have to ask. I know what
we're probably asking full an extra time for your.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Payers, but hearing you describe all the steps and all
the work your team does, from gathering to everything in
the butterfly lab to then setting everything up for release,
all these different teams have to come together, the mapping
of the areas.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Why do this for a butterfly?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Butterflies and mos, like I said, are just such a
huge critical component for all of our ecosystems. I guess
I would say, if we know that we need to
do something, we should do it. If we have the
ability and the expertise, we have the partnerships, that's part
of this. It's like, there's so many more butterflies and
moths in need, but maybe they don't have the habitat
(28:02):
piece worked out, or maybe there's something else that's missing. You.
Speaker 6 (28:06):
This can't be done in a vacuum.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
We can't just like breed butterflies or rear butterflies and
release them and just kind of hope for the best.
Speaker 6 (28:12):
That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
You know, You've got to have partnerships, and you've got
to have all those other pieces working at the same
time if you want to be successful, and with all
the unknowns, it's going to take a long time. We've
been doing Keino for eight years. We're still tweaking it.
So I think the question to me is more like,
why wouldn't you do that? You know, especially if you're
(28:35):
thinking about like how little we know about the world
in general, but especially about insects, And if we know
something and we know we can do something, then we
turn away.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You so much Page, Yes, thank you appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Light love and love. I learned a lot today, so
thank you for that. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Well.
Speaker 6 (28:56):
It was so fun being here with you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
You know what, Marco, I loved that every time we
talk to someone about butterflies on our team, we learn
even more.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I know, that's right.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
I could listen to fads talk about butterflies and invertebrates
all day.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
True.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Ye, Like when she mentioned how little we know about
all the invertebrates on the planet.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
I mean, by comparison, there are roughly seventy three thousand
vertebrates or animals with a backbone, from humans to birds
and fish, and these represent less than five percent of
the known animal kingdom. That's crazy, right, Yeah, And that
was according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
I mean, dude, there are more long horned beetle species
(29:38):
than bird species on the planet.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's cool out.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Not even that there are about the same number of
ladybug species as mammal species.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Okay, I will say that one I knew, Oh you did.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I didn't know that, man, There is so much unknown
to the insect verse, right, It's wild.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It really is.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
And I know Paige mentioned the team at the San
Diego Zoo Entomology Department, and how awesome they are. And
she's very proud of them. But I got to bring
it up. Begin their knowledge, the attention to detail, I mean,
come on, the frast and their headcap stuff, the dedication
to jumping into work that no one else has ever
done before.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It really takes someone special. That team is so cool.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah. I mean not only that team too, I mean
all the partners.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
I mean like dru right, like US Fish and Wildlife Service,
USDA for Service, California Department and Fish and Wildlife, and
the Monarch Joint Venture.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean, just to name a.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Few, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And there's everyone out there planting native plants in their yards,
like pages saying how important that is, and they're being
thoughtful enough to not use pesticides. All of these are
great examples of how much we can accomplish when we
work together reach.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I mean, when we look at the conservation success.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Stories out there, it's due to collaborations and people all
working together to make the earth a healthier place for
wildlife and for us.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I am so glad you mentioned that, Marco, because in
just a little over a week it's Earth Day.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Oh have we done an episode about Earth Day?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Not yet, Marco, but I do want to remind everyone
to subscribe and tune into our next episode, in which
we learn more about why Earth Day was started and
how it has helped shape conservation over the years.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
A Mark Owt and I'm Rick Schwartz.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San
Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to SDZWA dot org. Amazing
Wildlife is a production of iHeartRadio. Our supervising producers are
Nikia Swenton and Dylan Fagan, and our sound designers are
Sierra Spream and Matt Russell. For more shows from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(31:36):
listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, I'm Rich Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
What elsey s World?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Marco Wentz Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique
stories of wildlife from around the world and uncovered fascinating
animal facts. This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby
Studio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, an international nonprofit
conservation organization which oversees the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Ooh, Rick, I can't believe it.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We are already a couple weeks into spring, and here
in San Diego the month of April, it's always that,
you know, preview.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Of summer, kind of thee oh, I know what you mean, Marco.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Perfect temperatures, blue skies all day, and all the animals
the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park are just
loving every moment.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And I am too.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Right, And when this episode comes out, Butterfly Jungle will
be in full flood at the Safari full flutter.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Nice, thank you, that's actually very true.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Butterfly Jungle opened in March and will be available this
year all the way to make twelve. So now is
the time to go enjoy one of the more impressive
seasonal experiences here in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Oh man, it is impressive, isn't it. When I was
working there, I always loved how as soon as you
walked in you were immediately transported to this vibrant rainforest.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Jungle habits out.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, I know, right, and it's filled with colorful flowers
and butterflies and of course those soothing bird.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Costs you got to bring the birds into.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, you're right, Marco, it really is something special and
the birds do add to the ambiance absolutely. And for
anyone who was with us last season, you know, we
were able to speak to one of our wildlife care
specialists in our entomology department last year about the mind
blowing steps a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Ooh, butterfly soup.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Yes, but you know it's funny, I know, but you know,
just to clarify everyone, for those who've not heard that
episode from last season, butterfly soup is not a soup
people eat. I mean, there will be no butterfly manuthal here, everyone,
thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I mean it was an analogy made to.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Explain that the liquid inside the chrystalis is actually a
caterpillar and will become the butterfly later on.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yep, it's true. It's such an eye opening conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Honestly, I think that episode has generated the most feedback
from last season.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I mean it makes sense to me, who does it.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Love butterflies exactly?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And although a lot of people love butterflies, not too
many people know about the really amazing conservation work being done.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
For them and a egle.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
This is why we are heading to the San Diego
Zo to find out more about butterflies, butterfly conservation, and
whateverone can do to help our fluttery friends.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
I am Page Howarth. I am the McKinney family Curator
of Invertebrates.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
A lot of people are very excited it's springtime. We've
got butterfly jungle going on. But really, as much as
butterfly Jungle is wonderful and people can look at the
butterflies up close, there's a lot more going on with
butterflies and vertebrates in general, as you were sharing with
us earlier, but with butterfly conservation. Bring everybody up to speed.
Where are we what's going on with that?
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Butterflies and moths? Don't forget about.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Moths, and actually we can not forget about the moths,
a much.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
More significant group, do it.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
They're a hugely important insect group, and given what we
know about insects, it's kind of astonishing. Honestly, we barely
know anything at all about insects because insects are such
a huge group, and of all the species that have
been assessed, it's estimated that only about one percent of
insects have been assessed, So every single bird that's known
(03:32):
to science has been assessed for their conservation status. All
the other vertebrate groups are very close to one hundred
percent assessment. And then when you look at insects, there's
just this great unknown which is challenging, disheartening, but also
you know, like something.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That we need to look at.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Let me ask real quick, as someone who I know
is Deddie hit her life to invertebrates.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
We've known each other for very long time and it's
always impressed with your work. Why do you suppose that
is or do you know why that is that it's
only one percent that it seems like this is like
vastly overlooked but yet so very important group of living
creatures on this planet.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Well, part of it, I think is a visibility thing.
You know, it's much easier to care about pandas.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Right right, right, Yeah, they're fuzzy.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
Right at the bed, but.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
You know, but it's easier. They're adorable and their conservation
status is important. But insects are like doing all this
dirty work. Most people don't see them. There's all these
decomposers that are breaking down all this organic matter. A
lot of these are species that people would not care
to get close to, like hotcroaches, right, So there's also
a pr problems like insects. You know, people don't engage
(04:40):
as much with these animals, so in many ways they're
kind of like these silent partners, just doing all the
things and not getting thanked for it.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
It to that point.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I know, there's a quote you've shared with me years
ago about should these inverterates go away? It's a matter
of weeks till the planet basically folds in on itself, right.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
They're just the backbone of every ecosystem. So they're providing
food and I mean the biomass of insects is staggering,
so many things eat them. They're providing these decomposition services.
Speaker 6 (05:08):
Pollination.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Everybody is aware of how important pollination is, and really
bees are the heavy hitters for pollinating food for crops
and things like that and predation. I mean, you can't
have all these millions and millions and millions of insects
and not have something that's going to eat them as well.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I want to pull this back.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
It was such a cool fact, and we're talking about
early to your point, I was reading on our journal
by the way, there's a really cool article about pollinators.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I hope everyone can read.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
But it says that a foraging grizzly bear can eat
up to thirty thousand army cut worm moths a day
in the summertime. A big, large, carnivorous bear that is
relying on the teeniest, tiniest little animal in that ecosystem right.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
Exactly moths again, yea, that's incredible.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
What is it that you and our teams and our
partners across California are doing right now for which species
of butterfly as a moths?
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Well, we have a great partnership with the US Fish
and Wildlife Service, and you know, in California alone, there's
sixteen federally listed butterflies or.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Moths and federally listed means.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Under the endangered Species Act, so they're either threatened or endangered, but.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Most of the public doesn't even know we have that
many butterflies moths here writing.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Yeah, totally, and most people don't know that San Diego
is this a great biodiversity hotspot. And so we're working
with a couple of local species. One of them is
the Keno checker spot butterfly, which is found in southeast
San Diego and into Mexico. And then we also work
with the Luguna Mountain skipper, which is kind of an
alpine meadow butterfly. There's only one population left in the
(06:40):
Palomar Mountain region, and so we're working to reintroduce that
species to its namesake range and the laugunas.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
So what we do is we pull.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
In females that we think have made it during flight season,
which is going to be within the next month month
or two for the skipper, and we bring them back
to the butterfly Conservation Lab, which is a dedicated facility
that we have here at the zoo. We set them up,
encourage them to lay eggs, and we rear those larvae
to a certain life stage. Same for the Keno checker
(07:10):
spot butterflies. They go into basically a period of diapause
during the summer when their host plants dry up.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
What is diapause?
Speaker 5 (07:18):
We so diapause is a period of rest. And the
poster child for insic diapause is the monarch butterfly. Okay, right,
when they're in diapause, they're hanging in trees, either on
the coast of California for the western population or down
in central Mexico for the eastern population. But for the
kenochecker spot butterfly it's the larva, and for the lagoon
a mountain skipper it's the pupa. So it's different for
(07:40):
every insect, which is also makes it really.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Tongo of species out there, right, that's crazy.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah, So you can't just yeah, we're doing head starting,
and headstarting is just kind of getting them to a
certain developmental stage and then putting them out into whichever
reintroduction scenario that you want to do. But you can't
just say we know how to do keno checker spots.
You could say we can do another checker spot very similarly,
or a silver spot maybe, but skippers are a totally
(08:07):
different family and they have totally different life history, and
so it's kind of like starting over every time.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wow, that's a lot of luck.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, I was just going to say a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But also, you guys, I got to point out the
visual or any of you kids listening right now picturing
these scientists out there.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I'm picturing these like butterfly nets. You like, well, maybe
what we did as a kid, but this could be
a job. Like you got inspired right and why this?
Speaker 4 (08:27):
And look at what you're doing right now. I mean
it's incredible. And by the way, we're in a page's
office right now.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I'm looking around. There's so much cool stuff in your office.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
It reminds you of the colors and the vibrancy of
insects too. Like you guys know, I'm the bird guy,
and I'm always hyping up animals that maybe don't get
the platform. And I speak to that and I our
reps how peeps say the same thing. But the under
underdog has got to be the insects.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Absolutely. But just kudos to you and your team.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Just the diversity of the animals that you work with
is incredible.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
Oh and I have the best team. And I'm not
just somebody who says I have the best team.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
No, I do.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
And everybody is really committed to learning more because everything
we do here, not just butterfly conservation, but everything that
we do, we have to create so many systems. We
have to figure things out. Sometimes we have to figure
out what the insects eat. Sometimes we have to figure
out what they're going to lay their eggs in. Again,
it's that great unknown, and that's what makes it so fun.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Temperatures and humidity is everyone's different, and there's so many
intervals where things can go wrong.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
You've got depending on the species you've got up to,
like horseshye crowds, you know, sixteen or seventeen molts. Okay,
I hope it works out every time, because a lot
can go wrong in between. That's a very vulnerable stage.
And so it's really a credit to kind of the
tinkering and the curiosity and just wanting to learn more
about these animals so that they thrive.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And anybody who's listening has not been to base camp yet.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You get a little bit of a taste of what
pages team does when you go to the Spineless Marvels building.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
It is amazing on so many levels.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
But I want to get back to the conservation of
the butterflies where I feel like we can.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
No, it's right, it's right, that's beautyful sort the place
right there, you go.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
That's I know, I know, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
So we got to the point where your team has
brought these different species in, get them to their different
spaces where they need to be.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
What's the next step after that?
Speaker 5 (10:17):
So we bring the females into the lab and that's
a pretty intense period of management because we want to
make sure that they have everything that they need to
be productive and to lay eggs, because that's the goal
of this, and so we give them a lot of
sunning sessions. We make sure that they have ready access
to food and water, and then every day we go
(10:37):
through their habitats and we pull out any eggs and
for the good a mountain skippers for example, that's really
really difficult.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Really, Yes, how big are the I was going to say,
I'll start there.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
So I have a picture of the skipper eggs on
their host plant, Herkalia clevelandy eye Okay, And I have
I think it's a quarter right now to it. And
you know there's the like in God, we trust in inscription,
the egg will fit inside the oh of the god
w in the coin. So they're really hard to see.
They're like kind of a cream color, and they're laid singly.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh my gosh, not in clusters.
Speaker 6 (11:14):
Not even in clusters. Youno make it easier. They lay
their eggs.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Clusters and the're like, yes, thank you so much. So
it's pretty obvious when you've got an egg cluster. But
the skippers, Yeah, so it's a completely different system for them. Wow.
So we're searching for eggs, we're setting eggs up with
the host plant. We set them up like pretty minimally
so that it's easier for us to see what's going on. Like,
so we don't have to always have a lot of
(11:40):
used host plant to clean out, because if you're looking
for tiny caterpillars, it just takes ten times longer if
you have a lot of leaf material to go through.
So this is incredibly like painstaking and labor intensive thing.
It takes a certain kind of person.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I do you want to do that?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
A lot of those people, I think it's those people
who will finish a puzzle point.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I'm not one of those, but I feel that I
get that.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Yeah, But we have some artists we have some people
that you know there that are artists and entomologists.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
So again, just the skippers I'm talking a lot about them,
is that their behavior is really interesting. You know when
they're when they're at a certain stage and their development
maybe like second in star. So in stars are the
developmental time between molts basically, so they're frasts, which is
what insect poop is called frass.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Can you spell that for us? F R A S
S frass Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
So we're monitoring frass all the time because frast tells
us that they're eating. FRAST tells us when they start
to back off of eating if it's the checker spots.
Because when they start to back off eating, we know
that they're getting ready to go into diapause, and we
start giving them different materials to hide out in cool cool.
And so for the skippers, they make these little sleeping
bags out of their leaf material, right, so it's the
host plant, and they use silk to weave together leaves
(12:58):
so that they can hide and they do concealed feeding.
So not only are they tiny, they don't want you
to look at them.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
The introvert of the butterflies exactly.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
So the first season that we did the Skippers, our
team is looking for the head capsule, and the head
capsule and the lagund amount skipper larvae is the only
part that's hard. The rest of it is like a
soft caterpillar, right, So that's the only part of the
exos skeleton that's hard, and it's black, and at that
stage it's the same size as they're frass. So we
(13:33):
have people and we need to know. We want to
know how long is it taking them to get from
first to second instar, from second to third, all those things,
because this is like really the first time we've been
able to examine that and manage care. So our team
was going through and looking for head capsules versus frass
under the scope, just to tell if anyone molted that day.
(13:54):
Because you can't see inside the sleeping bags, you don't
want to disturb them. So again, it's like developing them
methodology to know where you are and how you can
either keep doing what you're doing or just pivot and
do something different to move things forward.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I want our audience to realize what you're describing is
you and your team basically are writing the book on
how to care for these individuals and then how to
get them back out in the wild. Is what you're
saying is because no one else has done this, and
so literally each part of what you just described is
your team discovering how to do these things and then
(14:30):
just to your point, and if it doesn't work, we've
got to pivot. I was sitting here, it's like, wow,
it's like, you know, this is it's happening right here,
you know, for this species and someone's the great unknown.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
You know, that's incredible to me because in the world
normally you think of like there may be corners in
the Amazon that's still on Discovery, but probably not. Maybe
there is underwater deep dive, but insects, I mean, that's
really the great unknown, right the so much and just
kudos to the team and a well amazing work you
guys are doing.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
For that well yeah, I mean, and it's not just us.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
There's other organizations and other places working with different species
and we all learn from each other.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
For the skippers, there was.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Kind of an NC two management trial that happened a
few years ago, but there's really no substitute for having
a group of people that are just devoted to that
one thing.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Every single day eyes on it.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yeah, and so we do all get you know, like, hey,
at Woodland Park they're working with silver spots. Did you
know that you can get an Oregon silver spot to
enroll it's proboscis if you dip it's feed and water.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
Well, guess what that doesn't.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Work for check respots to miss let's miss them. So
it's like again, you know you have a handhold because
somebody's done something with something similar and then you try
to like mantle up on that and you're like, no,
that didn't work. You're building this methodology with the help
of your colleagues and partners, and you're moving in that direction.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
So I'm glad you brought that up because it is
just like with the other conservation mark when I've talked
to other people about it's not just us, it's not
just one team. It's a collective of people working together
sharing information. And that's so important to think for the
world to understand that it's not a competition. We're all
in this for the reason of conservation and saving these species.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So thank you for bringing that.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Yes, yeah, prates to that, and I mean not only
the scientists to reach all of us here in the
Alliance and other collaborators, but the community too.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Right where we're just talking about things that the public
can do.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
The obvious one is come to Spindless Marvels in base
Camp and visit that. It's my favorite spot at the zoo.
I love that we can offer this experience for everyone.
But we were talking about some other aspects, right that
maybe people can do to help out insects in general.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Do you mind bringing this up a little bit for
our guests.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
So. I think the lowest of low hanging fruit is
don't use pesticides in your garden.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
I think a lot of people think of pesticide problems
that insects are experiencing are like agricultural problems, like these
broad application problems, which they are, But there's also this
real issue with home gardening pesticide usage. And I think
sometimes it's like, well, if I use a little bit
more than the product describes, you know, I'll kill them
(16:58):
extra dead.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
They're not coming back this time.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah, And I mean I get it. Gardens are such
a source of tranquility and peace and they're so beautiful,
but it just be such a great thing if everyone
decided not to use pesticides or to use some organic
alternatives to managing pests in the garden. And then along
those lines, just returning your landscapes at your house back
to native landscapes. You think about like California is incredible,
(17:25):
and you could say the same no matter where you are,
you will have incredible wildlife in your backyard, and they
grew up with certain plants, so it's just kind of
a no brainer to start making that transition. If you
have a lot of exotic plants that require a lot
of water and require a lot of pest management, think
about what you can do to eventually transform that. We
did this at our house, and it's like every spring
(17:46):
of Oh, it's so exciting, what's going to happen this year,
because not everything comes up the same year, and some
stuff goes whoa, it's all the way over there now,
you know, And so you have all these surprises. But
once you get those native nectar plants, especially nectar is
so important to so many animals, you're going to start
seeing your pollinators come in. Then you're going to start
seeing your birds come in, and everybody else is going
to be like, I belong here, you know, because this
(18:08):
is a native habitat. So that's one thing that I
always tell people. It's not easy to do, and you're
going to have a blast doing it, and there's so
many resources to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, I mean it seems like less work, you save money.
It makes sense water, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
And I want to go back real quick.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
The reason we think well, pesticides, why that in the
general mind, I'm getting rid of pests. But it's worth
noting that the chemicals that make up the pesticides, they
have no discrimination. It will kill all insects and bugs.
And one thing we had talked about before too. When
it's used all the time and home sometimes overused, it
ends up then getting washed away, goes into the neighbor's yard,
goes into waterways, it gets into the storm drains, which
(18:42):
go to creeks and rivers in the ocean. And we're
finding now a lot of these pesticides and these chemicals
that make them up are being found.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Far far away from where they were applied. They don't
just break down and disappear.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
So that's part of the equation is understanding that, yes,
you're targeting what you consider a pest in your yard,
but the pesticide is discriminate on who it impacts, and
even birds like the hummingbirds sometimes will be affected by
these things as.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
Well, that's right.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
And the systemic pesticides like neo nicotinoid pesticides, what happens
typically is it's a coating on the seed, and so
the seed goes into the ground, the plant grows up,
and that pesticide is expressed in every tissue of that plant.
So if you're a bee, or you're a hummingbird, or
you're a butterfly and you're coming for nectar, it's going
(19:27):
to be expressed in the nectar as well. If you're
a songbird, you nicotinoids or having devastating effects on so
populations as well. So it's just one of those things
it's like you don't have to you know, if everyone
just said I'm not going to do that, it would
make a huge difference just the basics for like protecting
wildlife and keeping our ecosystems you know intact.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, it's a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, And so it's a matter of paying attention to
what you're putting in your garden as far as any
sort of chemicals and things like that, but also what
you brought in, which is great look at your native
plants the options there because you're bringing in those birds
and those butter flies and everything else. Let's say someone
is in the pathway of the migrating monarch, is there
something they can do to help the monarchs out in
their travels?
Speaker 6 (20:09):
Nectar?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Nectar.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Nectar is key, and you know, we had a really
tough year for monarchs. For the Eastern monarchs this past season,
they were down about sixty percent. It's the second lowest
population since they've been monitored for all these years. So
nectar is really important. Obviously it's important to have a milkweed,
of course, but often you know, adults are searching for
(20:32):
those resources when they're on their way down to Mexico
and when they're on their way back laying those eggs.
So that's super important. Just again having a native garden,
having plants that are going to bloom at the right time.
The phonology or the timing of things is really important
for butterflies and other pollinators. And with climate change it's
getting offset, you know, and so things are coming up
or not coming up, they're coming up early and by
(20:53):
the time the butterflies get there, it's already spent. So
nectar's that's another just no brainer, just plant nectar.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Yeah. I mean I remember being a kid in Escondillo,
a town north of San Diego here, and just seeing
those butterflies when I was a kid, and I just
get so excited and troll around every year. But then
there was a point I just wouldn't really see them anymore,
and it was really heartbreaking. You know, there was a
time here you'd see hundreds and hundreds of monarchs flying
over San Diego, but we're just we're not seeing that
any longer.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
So San Diego has changed a lot here for sure.
I mean we still monitor over wintering sites here for
Western monarchs y, but we typically don't see a lot
of butter I mean I have a site here by
the zoo that I do every year and.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
There's nothing nothing.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Yeah, And it's been like that for a really long time.
Some of the more northern sites there are and there
were butterflies in la and Pendleton last year, which is great.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
But we also have a resident population in San Diego,
which complicates things. Going back to the like what should
I plant? There's a ton of great resources. The Zorca
Society for invertebrate conservation as regional planting guides. So you
just go and you can find where you live and
what are the right things to have in your garden.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
From what was that again, Zeres, it's x.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
E r CEES and they're a nonprofit invertebrate conservation organization.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
That's a resource.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Yeah. There's also the Monarch Joint Venture, which is a
collaborative where partners with Monarch Joint Venture and with CERCES
and they have just an incredible wealth of information just
on monarchs.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
So people can visit and learn a lot there.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Cool and I was saying, can visit us to you, right,
I mean we got butterfly Jungle happens that it's there's
plant Trader. There's really cool native plant species out there
that they sell, you know, so that could be an
easy go take the kids and do the butterflies, get
some native plants.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Well, as we're starting to wrap this up page, I
just want to open up the opportunity the last stages
of the butterfly conservation. You talked us through the incredible
detailed work your team has to go through. What's the
other side of it. What are you landing on on
the other side of all this when they go back
out into the wild, or are we building a population
in the zoo environment first, or what does that.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Last step for those butterflies.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
So we're doing head starting, so we don't hold anything
back for like a year round breeding program at this stage.
The Kenot checker spot butterfly is they lay a lot
of eggs and we are really successful in the lab
at kind of getting a lot of eggs from them.
So we have lots of larvae that we're managing. I
was just doing a field check a couple of weeks
ago and I brought this back in my binocular bag.
(23:21):
So these are the vessels that we use to put
them out in the habitat. So basically I'm holding in
my hand a finch seed feeder. It's a wire feeder.
It's got a top that pops off.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
A little bit bigger than a softball. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Inside of it is a peat pot, so those like
gardening peat pots that kind of break down and they've
got big holes punched in the peat pot. And then
there's a date on it, so it says twenty twenty
one and five on both the top and bottom, and
so we place the larvae inside the peat pots and
again they're asleep. Basically, they're in diapause, so they don't
know what's happening. We try to do this in I mean,
(23:57):
we used to say we try to do this outside
of fire season, but it's kind of like not every
so it typically happens in November. But what we want
is for them to get all the cues in the habitat,
so they have been safe in the lab for the
first part of their life and they've been in diapause
for a couple months at this point, so we put
them in the we call these pods. These are the
(24:18):
release pods, and we put them in the pod and
then we wire them to a shrub in the San
Diego National Wildlife Refuge at whichever site we're releasing on,
and we have six sits right now for the keno
and so they sit there until it starts raining. And
they've been placed within a patch of Plantago erecto, which
is their host plant. So we have partners from Wild
(24:39):
Spring Ecology that are doing the mapping, so Sean will
go out and find the juiciest patches that appear to
be like coming up for the host plant, and that's
where we'll put the pods, and so we wire them
in and then we just start monitoring them. As the
rain starts falling, the plantago starts coming up, and they
start to leave the pods.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So they wake up.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
They malt like, okay, it's a look, I have everything
I need right here.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Is it the rain that's trigging their movement the behavior,
or is it the flowering or the change in the
plant that's triggering it or is it both?
Speaker 5 (25:08):
It's probably both, we don't know exactly. We can make
this happen in managed care too, with moisture and host plants.
Oh okay, So they're emerging from the pods and they're
feeding and we're monitoring their growth. And for Keno, some
of them are going to complete their development at this point,
so they're going to become adults themselves. Some of them
are going to go back into diapause. And as a
(25:28):
result of doing this work, releasing them in this way,
because we check them after the season is over, after
everything is dried and everybody's either dead or back in diapause,
depending on if they matured or not, we know that
they don't have to break diapause to survive really, so
we've looked inside these things and gone, hey, there's still
(25:49):
some larvae diapause in here over two years, which is
crazy because they're only like six millimeters two years at release.
So they have these strategies to deal with the unpredictable conditions.
A year ago, it's hot, it's dry with fire, and
it's kind of a cool bad hedging mechanism for them.
So that's the process for Kino. We rear them up,
we hang on to them until we feel like it's
(26:10):
safe to put them out into the habitat, and we
put them out in the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge. We
monitor them after the season's over, and we count the
abundance on the sites afterwards. For the skippers, it's been
two years that we've been working on this and we're
still trying to figure out the best way to do it.
So the first year, we rid them all the way
to pupy and we put them out as pupy and
(26:31):
similar containers. The last time we did it last year,
we put them out as third in star larvae so
that they could find their own places to kind of
huddle up for their period of dialas because they make
those shelters in their Horkalia host plant. They're really hard
to find, and so you know, releasing them is these
(26:51):
little third in star larvae because they need to make
choices about like where they're going to pupey and they
live in this high elevation which kind of flooded in
June unexpectedly. You know, so we have all these conditions
that it seemed like it was better to let them
make those choices. Keno make choices whether they're going to
(27:12):
come out of diapause or not. But the skippers were
still kind of trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
That's so cool.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, Rad, that's incredible. Good job you guys, Kudos thinks.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
One last question I have to ask. I know what
we're probably asking full an extra time for your.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Payers, but hearing you describe all the steps and all
the work your team does, from gathering to everything in
the butterfly lab to then setting everything up for release,
all these different teams have to come together, the mapping
of the areas.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Why do this for a butterfly?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Butterflies and mos, like I said, are just such a
huge critical component for all of our ecosystems. I guess
I would say, if we know that we need to
do something, we should do it. If we have the
ability and the expertise, we have the partnerships, that's part
of this. It's like, there's so many more butterflies and
moths in need, but maybe they don't have the habitat
(28:02):
piece worked out, or maybe there's something else that's missing. You.
Speaker 6 (28:06):
This can't be done in a vacuum.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
We can't just like breed butterflies or rear butterflies and
release them and just kind of hope for the best.
Speaker 6 (28:12):
That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
You know, You've got to have partnerships, and you've got
to have all those other pieces working at the same
time if you want to be successful, and with all
the unknowns, it's going to take a long time. We've
been doing Keino for eight years. We're still tweaking it.
So I think the question to me is more like,
why wouldn't you do that? You know, especially if you're
(28:35):
thinking about like how little we know about the world
in general, but especially about insects, And if we know
something and we know we can do something, then we
turn away.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You so much Page, Yes, thank you appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Light love and love. I learned a lot today, so
thank you for that. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Well.
Speaker 6 (28:56):
It was so fun being here with you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
You know what, Marco, I loved that every time we
talk to someone about butterflies on our team, we learn
even more.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I know, that's right.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
I could listen to fads talk about butterflies and invertebrates
all day.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
True.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Ye, Like when she mentioned how little we know about
all the invertebrates on the planet.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
I mean, by comparison, there are roughly seventy three thousand
vertebrates or animals with a backbone, from humans to birds
and fish, and these represent less than five percent of
the known animal kingdom. That's crazy, right, Yeah, And that
was according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
I mean, dude, there are more long horned beetle species
(29:38):
than bird species on the planet.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's cool out.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Not even that there are about the same number of
ladybug species as mammal species.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Okay, I will say that one I knew, Oh you did.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I didn't know that, man, There is so much unknown
to the insect verse, right, It's wild.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It really is.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
And I know Paige mentioned the team at the San
Diego Zoo Entomology Department, and how awesome they are. And
she's very proud of them. But I got to bring
it up. Begin their knowledge, the attention to detail, I mean,
come on, the frast and their headcap stuff, the dedication
to jumping into work that no one else has ever
done before.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It really takes someone special. That team is so cool.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah. I mean not only that team too, I mean
all the partners.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
I mean like dru right, like US Fish and Wildlife Service,
USDA for Service, California Department and Fish and Wildlife, and
the Monarch Joint Venture.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean, just to name a.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Few, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And there's everyone out there planting native plants in their yards,
like pages saying how important that is, and they're being
thoughtful enough to not use pesticides. All of these are
great examples of how much we can accomplish when we
work together reach.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I mean, when we look at the conservation success.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Stories out there, it's due to collaborations and people all
working together to make the earth a healthier place for
wildlife and for us.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I am so glad you mentioned that, Marco, because in
just a little over a week it's Earth Day.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Oh have we done an episode about Earth Day?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Not yet, Marco, but I do want to remind everyone
to subscribe and tune into our next episode, in which
we learn more about why Earth Day was started and
how it has helped shape conservation over the years.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
A Mark Owt and I'm Rick Schwartz.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San
Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to SDZWA dot org. Amazing
Wildlife is a production of iHeartRadio. Our supervising producers are
Nikia Swenton and Dylan Fagan, and our sound designers are
Sierra Spream and Matt Russell. For more shows from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(31:36):
listen to your favorite shows.
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