LAX’S 2011 EL SEGUNDO BLUE BUTTERFLY POPULATION COUNT INCREASES EIGHT PERCENT OVER PREVIOUS YEAR

(Los Angeles, California – February 9, 2012)  The endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly has certainly found a refuge in the 200-acre Dunes Habitat Preserve at Los Angeles   International Airport (LAX).    

            The recently completed 2011 seasonal field study and analysis of the El Segundo Blue Butterfly now estimates the population between 120,610 and 125,920 -- representing an increase of approximately eight percent over 2010. This builds on an even more dramatic increase realized in 2010 when that year’s population count of between 111,562 and 116,474 butterflies represented an increase of 30 percent over 2009.  

The population counts were conducted by consulting entomologist Dr. Richard Arnold.

            “The present count has increased remarkably from the fewer than 500 El Segundo Blue Butterflies that existed in 1976 when it was among the first insects to be listed as a Federal Endangered Species,” said Robert Freeman, environmental services manager for Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), the City department that owns and operates LAX. 

            To encourage the butterfly’s comeback, and after careful study and consultation with environmental experts, LAWA created the Dunes Habitat Restoration Project in 1986 to focus on reintroducing and protecting the coastal buckwheat plant, the butterfly’s sole food source and near which it spends its entire life cycle.  

Recent increase in the butterfly population also has been helped by rainfall between 2008 and 2011 that was at or above normal levels, increasing the numbers of mature buckwheats by 2.4 times compared to 2007.

After expanding the butterfly’s habitat to its present 200 acres, LAWA then established ongoing recovery programs.  Because of these efforts, the El Segundo Blue Butterfly population is flourishing. Today, the preserve is home again to more than 1,000 species of plants and animals, in addition to the El Segundo Blue Butterfly.

            The active flight season of the El Segundo Blue Butterfly is only a couple of months, beginning in mid-June.  By August, their pupae lie dormant until the following June when the cycle begins again.