Mission blue butterfly habitat conservation

[1] An example of the type of work being done by governmental and citizen agencies can be found at the Marin Headlands in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The Mission Blue Butterfly UserFee Project in the headlands will try to remove these species and revegetate the area with native coastal prairie plants.

Property owners who located in this area were required to offer land and funds to conserve and improve habitat in other locales around San Bruno Mountain.

On top of this, the saddle is overgrown with an invasive species, gorse, while the Mission blue requires lupine as its host plant.

[5] The environmental consulting firm, Thomas Reid Associates (TRA) crafted the plan and work to carry out the HCPs biological program and monitors the results.

[5] The Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office is in charge of the plats under conservation at San Bruno Mountain and Parkside Homes.

Parkside Homes is the newest habitat conservation plan or agreement and involves a twenty-five acre residential community in South San Francisco.

An 8+1⁄4 acres (3.3 ha) area of non-native Monterey pine and tea trees are invading part of a habitat at Fort Baker.

[10] A pitched legal battle was waged for years over the fate of some of the Fort Baker lands, the players: the city of Sausalito, California, and the National Park Service (NPS).

Sausalito and the National Park Service go back in legal battles several years but they also work together at times, sometimes to the benefit of one party or the other, as U.S. Department of Interior appropriations will reveal.

In 1999, the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for FY 1999 made a "general provisions" dealing with the city of Sausalito and the Department of Interior.

[11] The legal battle ensued when the National Park Service announced plans to finally allow a development group to build a large, long-awaited hotel/conference center complex on the remains of Fort Baker.

By 2001, the city of Sausalito had filed suit to force an injunction against the Park Service's plan to go ahead with the project.

[13] The entire affair was settled in 2005 when the city and the Park Service came to an agreement which resulted in the project being trimmed down to a 144-room hotel complex.

[12] The Twin Peaks, icons of the San Francisco Bay Area, are also home to a reported population of Mission blue butterflies.

Among the coastal scrub and prairies are silver bush lupine plants (L. albifrons) which support the colonies of endangered Mission blues.

Protocols for monitoring include egg surveys on lupine plants at regular time intervals throughout the spring.

In February 2006, the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department released its "Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan."

The plan outlines site specific recommendations for the more than 800 acres (3.2 km2) in over 30 San Francisco parks designated Significant Natural Resource Areas.

The site specific plan for Twin Peaks covers the issue of habitat conservation for the Mission blue.

The plan recommends that priority be given to "maintaining the habitat necessary for Mission blue butterflies, especially the host plant (silver bush lupine)."

[14] Popular thought is that the host plants, lupines, require periodic disturbances in order to successfully reproduce.

Many possible natural disturbances are actively worked against by humans, such as fire and landslides because areas are designed with a dual use purpose in mind, often for recreational use.

The Monterey pine, a pesky invasive species that has become "naturalized," is continually encroaching on the coastal grasslands that the Mission blue butterfly prefers and requires.

[16] The August 2004 "Lateral Fire" started, again, within Fort Baker, a half mile south of Sausalito, California.

The fire happened within a 17-acre (69,000 m2) habitat restoration project and burned areas of the butterfly's host lupine plant, Lupinus albifrons.

[17] Control of non-native species trying to reinvade the area was cited as a key measure in protecting the lupines, essential to Mission blue survival.

The non-native French broom and Italian thistle were among the culprits seeking to re-enter coastal grass and scrubland.

Three types of treatments were implemented in the effort to control French broom: When these techniques were applied to seedlings within two months of germination, they were 90% effective.

The propane torches proved less successful against Italian thistle which was controlled utilizing mostly a hand pulling and herbicide combination.