Photo By Scott Sturkol | A Karner Blue butterfly is shown July 14, 2025, on South Post for members of a...... read more read more
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For decades Fort McCoy has done work to improve the habitat of the endangered Karner Blue butterfly and today the butterfly is thriving on the installation.
Fort McCoy Endangered Species Biologist Jessup Weichelt said in 2024 that Fort McCoy has met its Karner Blue butterfly conservation goals.
“This has allowed us to lessen our requirements for the species,” Weichelt said.. “We are now only required to perform surveys every other year, and this has saved us the cost of a summer technician on the off years allowing us to allocate money to some of our other species we manage.”
Since the wild lupine flower is a favorite of the Karner for feeding and reproducing, Weichelt said Fort McCoy worked on mapping areas of the installation where lupine was present.
“We started mapping 10 percent annually back in 2018 with a goal to map the entire installation in a 10-year period,” Weichelt said. “This has allowed us to be more consistent with seasonal hiring for both the mapping crew and the personnel who perform presence/absence of that mapping the following year. In 2021, the lupine mapping crew switched from paper mapping to mapping using tablets. This has greatly increased the accuracy of lupine being mapped and removed a lot of the human error that had occurred in the past.
“Our presence/absence has continued to give us over 90 percent of our lupine being shown as occupied with KBB throughout the installation,” Weichelt said. “Presence is performed by going to previous year mapped lupine patches anywhere from one to three times starting around mid-May and going until the end of the second Karner Blue butterfly flight around the end of July. During these visits, the individual searches for either a Karner Blue butterfly egg on lupine, a larval KBB caterpillar, or an adult butterfly. If any of these are found in any of those three trips, the patch is considered occupied.”
Weichelt also noted in 2024 that interest has been out there to start new populations of Karner Blue butterflies in other areas.
“We have … had interest from both the Crow-Hassen Park in Minnesota and the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge for possible Karner Blue butterfly introduction to their properties utilizing Fort McCoy’s population as the surrogate,” Weichelt said.
In 1994, Tim Wilder, former NRB chief who retired in March 2025, became the first endangered species biologist at Fort McCoy and was charged with developing a program that would improve habitat and numbers for endangered species.
More than 30 years since, the Karner Blue Butterfly program that came out of that effort has been a model for success across the United States. Wilder said in March 1995, he and his team at the Natural Resources Branch drafted and had approved the first Fort McCoy Karner Blue Butterfly (KBB) Endangered Species Management Plan. In 1995 they were part of a different directorate.
During his retirement March 27, Wilder reflected on being able to support and build the program.
“The other thing I really loved about the job is the species I got to work with as an endangered species biologist,” Wilder said. “You got to know that species. You’re doing the research and the surveys and everything, too. Where a lot of wildlife biologists, if you’ve got a huge property you’re managing, you’re more managing habitat, but not individual species per se. So that was really neat to be able to do that with the Karner.”
As time went on, the Fort McCoy Karner program grew to include working with outside partners, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), and many others.
“When we got involved with the state, they started dealing with the Karner after we did,” Wilder said. “They had what was called a habitat conservation plan that they were trying to develop. So, we weren’t members of that, but we were partners, giving them advice and working with them. And we got benefits out of it, too.
“But it was just surprising when we started working (with the state),” he said. “We learned how many other people were dealing with the Karner and were already far behind us. I remember we were out on tours and I was pointing out, ‘That’s a Karner Blue Butterfly egg.’ And they're thinking, ‘I never saw one before.’”
Wilder said through lots of work in the program, they really got to know the butterfly.
“McCoy’s getting to be known for its rare butterflies,” Wilder said. “We’ve got one of the best populations of the Karner left under one ownership. We’ve also got the regal fritillary butterfly now that’s going through the process of being federally listed. And we’ve got the best population of that left in the upper Midwest. Monarchs are going to be listed, and we’ve got them here too.”
Wilder said the Frosted Elfin butterfly is another butterfly that’s rare like the KBB and prevalent at Fort McCoy.
“It’s host plant is wild lupine, just like the Karner, and we’ve got the best population of that left in Wisconsin,” Wilder said. “It’s almost range wide. There’s a few spots that probably have more. But the one that's not even listed yet, but it probably will be in some days, is called the otto skipper butterfly. And that one, we're the only place left in Wisconsin that has them, I think, since 2015.
What they’ve also learned over the last three decades about the Karner are ways to better its habitat and to make natural resources decisions to continue improving the habitat so they can successfully reproduce. Wilder said also that Fort McCoy has never lost time for training troops because of habitat for the butterfly.
“I have always thought the levels of training that occur on McCoy, that disturbance caused by them is inadvertently helping manage this butterfly,” Wilder said. “We had some research done … here a few years ago. And what the findings came out with, again, show that at the levels that training is now, because it helps control the shrub layer, the bivouacking and that kind of stuff, it promotes the lupin (to grow) better.”
Wilder said Fort McCoy was also the place that developed an innovative, one-of-a-kind process to mitigate the permanent take of KBBs off the installation in 2013.
“The process included Fort McCoy moving funds ($3,320/acre) to the USFWS who in-turn provided the funds to the WDNR to establish or manage KBB habitat on their lands.
“Since McCoy had already reached its conservation goals and the WDNR hadn’t, this was a win for Fort McCoy in that we are assisting the WDNR to reach their goals. This species cannot be delisted until the WDNR reaches their conservation goals. In addition, as soon as Fort McCoy provided the funds to the USFWS, it was the USFWS responsibility to ensure the WDNR used the funds properly — not Fort McCoy. I was told by natural resource managers at the Pentagon that this was the first and only time this method had been used to mitigate the incidental take of an endangered species off an installation, and they were surprised by the low cost of doing so.
Wilder said Fort McCoy briefed this method to other Department of Defense natural resource managers and to all natural resource managers at a National Wildlife Society meeting.
In 2025, Weichelt continues what Wilder started by managing the Karner program and needs for other endangered butterflies at Fort McCoy.
“It’s been some great work by everyone, and it’s something Fort McCoy should be proud of,” Wilder said.
See more about the Karner Blue Butterfly by visiting https://www.fws.gov/species/karner-blue-butterfly-lycaeides-melissa-samuelis.
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.”
(Article prepared by the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office and the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.)
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2025 16:24 |
| Story ID: | 543896 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 44 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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