Photo By Scott Sturkol | Members of the public participate in a butterfly field day July 14, 2025, on South...... read more read more
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Approximately 45 people over two tours from the Natural Resources Foundation (NRF) of Wisconsin visited Fort McCoy on July 14 to participate in a butterfly field day at the installation for a third straight year.
The Fort McCoy coordination for the field trip was again led by Endangered Species Biologist Jessup Weichelt with the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch (NRB) and supported by Natural Resources Specialist Jessica Salesman, also with the NRB.
Weichelt said the weather for the event was good, and the turnout for both the morning and afternoon tours was also good. “The mission is always to find as many butterflies as we can,” Weichelt said.
For the 2025 field day, the 45 participants matched the 2024 number of participants. Three years ago, 19 people participated in the field day.
Weichelt the participants all paid a fee to the NRF for the trip “that goes toward natural resource management in Wisconsin.”
As far as how the day went, Weichelt said the visitors were able to see some of the rare endangered butterflies that seem to thrive at Fort McCoy.
“We mostly observed various common skippers like the Dun and Tawny Edge Skipper as well as a good amount of Regal Fritillary, Gorgone Checkerspot, Eastern Tailed Blue and Spring Azure butterflies,” Weichelt said. “The weather did get a little hotter than you would like for butterfly surveys, but it didn’t completely deter butterflies from being out. We were able to see the rare Ottoe Skipper with both groups as well as Karner Blue Butterflies and the Regals, which are what I consider the big three for this tour.”
Weichelt has said in past news articles that the awareness about endangered species at Fort McCoy is very important.
“A lot of people when they come here, they just think ‘Fort McCoy military installation,’ and they don’t think they’re allowed to come out here. They also don’t know that the military does a lot of work for helping endangered species,” Weichelt said.
“It’s very eye opening for a lot of them when I tell them they can create iSportsman accounts and come out here and recreate,” he said. “And also, that we do a lot of management for endangered species and that we have more of them than any other entity per square acre that manages land in the U.S.”
The first field days dedicated to butterfly searching for the public was first held at Fort McCoy in July 2019. Those field days were organized by former NRB Chief and Endangered Species Biologist Tim Wilder, who retired earlier in 2025.
In 2019, approximately 60 people attended two field days. At that time, Wilder said, “This is an opportunity for people to learn much more about the rare butterfly management that is occurring on the installation.”
Those field days included a presentation followed by a bus tour that included the opportunity to see butterflies, much like the 2025 event.
“The populations of many pollinators, including butterflies, are declining throughout their ranges,” Wilder said in 2019. “Fort McCoy is home to one of the largest remaining populations of the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly.”
Both 2025 tours centered around areas on Fort McCoy’s South Post, Weichelt said. Plants and flowers in the Badger Drop Zone, for example, are some of the best suited for the rare butterflies found at Fort McCoy.
Attendees to the field day once again came from all over Wisconsin. The Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, available at https://www.wisconservation.org, is a nonprofit 501c3 that was formed in 1986 as declining budgets severely compromised critical programs of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, the website states.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.”
Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2025 12:21 |
| Story ID: | 543842 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 17 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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