Hawken Student Works to Save the Checkerspot
Can you "Spot a Checkerspot?" I'm Emily Weatherhead, a junior at Hawken School, and my "Spot the Checkerspot" project is tracking the rare, elusive and beautiful native Ohio butterfly, the Harris Checkerspot. I have spent the last year educating people about this butterfly, restoring its habitat and working with the members of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to get it listed with the Ohio Division of Wildlife as endangered.
Why does the Checkerspot need protection? The biggest problem for the Harris Checkerspot is habitat destruction. It is a wetland butterfly in a state that has lost more than 90 percent of its original wetlands due to agriculture, commercial and residential development. The Harris Checkerspot has several characteristics that also make it especially vulnerable to habitat destruction. To begin with, the caterpillar from which this butterfly emerges is an incredibly picky eater because it will only eat one plant, the flat-topped aster. There is only one brood every year, emerging between mid-May and early July. Finally, the Harris Checkerspot is not a strong flyer. It is known as a colony butterfly, meaning that is stays close to the flat-topped asters that provides food for the larvae. Unfortunately, the Ohio Department of Agriculture destroyed many established colonies on May 20, 1986 when they sprayed Dimilin in Ashtabula County's Grand River Terraces preserve in order to kill the gypsy moth. Dimilin is a wide spectrum pesticide which indiscriminately killed the Harris Checkerspot caterpillars.
Over the past year, I've been working to restore habitat by planting flat-topped white asters and assorted native wildflowers in a variety of butterfly gardens. I applied for and received a Wild School Site grant from the Ohio Division of Wildlife this past winter which provided seed and plant money. In May, I planted my first butterfly garden at Hawken Upper School, with the help of several fellow students. A few weeks later, I planted flat-topped asters with
a group of third, fourth and fifth graders at Lindsey Elementary School in Chesterland in their new wetland area. I also planted flat-topped aster and swamp milkweed at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes with the Butterfly Blitz campers.
In addition to planting, I'm visiting schools, nature centers, and farmers' markets, educating people about the Harris Checkerspot. I talked with the Hawken fifth graders before they went on an overnight camping trip to Camp Asbury in Hiram. This was particularly exciting because Camp Asbury is the only place there has been a recorded sighting of a Harris Checkerspot butterfly in the last three years. I made ID cards for each student that had pictures of the butterfly, its caterpillar, and flat-topped asters, which they could hang around their necks with lanyards. Funding for these and other promotional materials came from Save Our Stream. I've been working with David Kriska from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to get the Harris Checkerspot listed as endangered or threatened in the State of Ohio. Listing the Harris Checkerspot with the State Division of Wildlife is important because it will help raise public awareness of this rare butterfly.
If you would like to help the effort to preserve the Harris Checkerspot habitat in Ohio, please contact me at spotthecheckerspot1 at yahoo.com.