Karner Blue Butterfly Habitat Conservation Plan History

Approved in September 1999, the Karner Blue Butterfly Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) is based on a legal agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), and an array of public and private land managers. The agreement allows Wisconsin land managers to continue operating in and around Karner blue habitat, provided they modify their activities to minimize incidental take (death, harm or harassment) of Karner blues.

The Karner blue butterfly was federally listed as an endangered species in 1992. Although the species is rare nationwide, it is relatively common in central and northwestern Wisconsin, especially where pine barrens, oak savannas, and mowed corridors support wild lupine, the only food of the Karner blue caterpillar.

When the FWS approves an HCP, it issues an incidental take permit to authorize and guide land management in areas occupied by the endangered species. Wisconsin's statewide HCP, the only statewide HCP in the nation, provides incidental take permit coverage to all HCP participants. Most small private landowners in Wisconsin are automatically covered under the terms of the HCP and may participate in Karner blue conservation voluntarily. Most major land managers must apply for HCP partnership to receive coverage under the statewide permit.

Thirty-seven major land managers participate in the HCP as partners, including representatives from the forest industry, utilities, and roadway management authorities. The partnership works in cooperation with countless volunteer groups and concerned citizens across a vast area of Wisconsin to incorporate consideration of the Karner blue in land-use decisions. In turn, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [exit DNR] allows land managers some flexibility in how they protect Karner blue habitat.

Program History

1992

Shortly after the Karner blue was listed as an endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) approached the WDNR about Karner blue management opportunities. There was some question as to how Wisconsin would respond to the listing, considering the widespread distribution of the species across the state and the large number of landowners affected. Given ongoing conflicts over listing of the northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest, the FWS was eager to avoid similar problems with the Karner blue in Wisconsin.

1993-1994

WDNR's Chuck Pils, Jim Addis, Cathy Bleser and Darrell Zastrow began developing the idea of a statewide habitat conservation plan, an agreement that would maintain Karner blue habitat in Wisconsin while allowing the continuation of land management practices like forestry and right-of-way maintenance. International Paper, Georgia Pacific and other industrial foresters contacted Bureau of Endangered Resources director Chuck Pils and Land Division Administrator Jim Addis in support of the idea.

The statewide HCP concept was revolutionary. To date, almost all HCPs had been limited to a small geographic range and one or two landowners. The "Wisconsin Plan" would coordinate a single incidental take permit for all landowners in the state.

WDNR joined forest industry representatives to pitch the statewide concept to the regional office of the FWS in Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The FWS was receptive and encouraged the WDNR to take the lead in the HCP process.

Chuck Pils and FWS biologist Cathy Carnes distributed a letter to about 3,000 people in and around Wisconsin's Karner blue range, explaining the listing and the statewide HCP concept. Public meetings followed in Stevens Point and Madison. Through this process, the WDNR identified potential HCP partners among the major land managers legally required to obtain an incidental take permit from the FWS for their work in and around Karner blue habitat. These major land managers included forest industry representatives, utilities and highway managers. Under the HCP proposal, most small private landowners would receive permit coverage automatically.

Near the end of 1994, the Articles of Partnership were completed, and the HCP Team was formed. The Articles of Partnership outlined the criteria of HCP partners and defined the rules for subsequent meetings that would finalize the HCP. The HCP Team was made up of potential HCP partners, major collaborators like the Wisconsin Paper Council, the WDNR and FWS.

1995-1996

The first several meetings of the HCP Team were charged with debate. The partners were anxious to represent their individual interests, but few had experience with federally endangered species in Wisconsin. Certain partners, having fought fierce battles over endangered species in other states, made brash demands and staked inflexible positions. Less experienced partners appeared overwhelmed. Many expressed fears that the Endangered Species Act would be used against them.

The attitude of the meetings began to change when the WDNR hired HCP Coordinator Dave Lentz, and Georgia Pacific introduced Kit Hart, a biologist from Jackson, Mississippi. At his first HCP meeting in 1995, Dave Lentz announced that the WDNR would not pursue a regulatory role in the HCP, but would serve as an HCP facilitator and partner representative. This position allowed the WNDR to develop trust and ease tensions among the partner groups. About a year later, Kit Hart joined the team. Rather than taking the offensive, Kit built working relationships with other foresters, other partner groups and regional FWS representatives. The challenge at that time was to convince people of common goals and the value of cooperation. Leaders like Dave Lentz, Kit Hart, Tom Hunt (Wisconsin Power and Light, now Alliant), Mike Luedeke (Burnett County Forest), Fred Souba (Johnson Timber), Pam Rasmussen (Xcel Energy) and Nancy Braker (The Nature Conservancy) kept the process moving forward.

In 1996, individual partner groups began meeting to iron out their differences, and task groups tackled topics like monitoring strategies, communications and education. Confidence in the HCP Team began to grow, and nationally, innovative endangered species management grew more popular, thanks in part to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt. Georgia Pacific entered into a large conservation agreement with The Nature Conservancy on the East Coast and began fostering wildlife preservation in other parts of the country.

Meanwhile, FWS staff people concentrated on developing the Karner Blue Butterfly Recovery Plan [exit DNR], in part because they had to determine whether the HCP would jeopardize nationwide recovery of the species. Without having a final recovery plan in place, the FWS was forced to predict recovery goals and make judgments about the HCP based on these predictions. These were uncharted waters for FWS representatives, too, and they struggled to balance their roles as regulators and HCP collaborators.

1996-1998

As the HCP Team and task groups drafted the HCP, team representatives began taking their work on the road. Chuck Pils, Fred Souba (Stora Enso) and Tom Hunt (Wisconsin Power and Light, now Alliant) went to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the HCP. Chuck Pils and WDNR attorney Jim Christenson made regular trips to the FWS regional office in Minnesota to review HCP text and develop the HCP participation plan. Much of the success in these early efforts is owed to Sharon Stephans, a project attorney with the FWS Solicitor's office who advocated for the HCP approach at FWS headquarters. Sharon's help was vital in obtaining FWS approval for important HCP elements like the adaptive management and amendment processes and the voluntary participation (small landowner inclusion) strategy.

Another important achievement was FWS approval of in-kind contributions for HCP funding. Normally, the FWS requires that funding for HCP implementation be guaranteed by the applicant, typically in the form of escrow accounts or bonds. Instead, the WDNR proposed in-kind contributions of survey hours, partner management efforts and partner-produced outreach products like Alliant's Karner blue brochure and International Paper's Spotlight on the Environment video. Acceptance of this proposal underscored the value of HCP efforts. Over time, it had become clear that the HCP was probably the only viable response to the Karner blue listing in Wisconsin.

Throughout the drafting of the HCP, public participation was very important, and the WDNR worked to make the process transparent. Environmental groups including the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Defenders of Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club were invited to participate in meetings and offer suggestions. The Nature Conservancy in particular provided strong support.

The HCP text was completed after two years. The public comment period generated only seven comments, none of which were opposed to the HCP. This was an amazing triumph, considering the controversies that smaller-scale HCPs had generated elsewhere.

Internally, support for the HCP was solid. The HCP Team never voted on portions of HCP text or process-- whenever disagreements arose, the team talked them through and found a way to reach a consensus.

1999 - 2003

The HCP was completed and signed at a ceremony attended by Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt on September 27, 1999. Twenty-six major land managers participated as partners at the outset, and 11 more partners have joined since then. The HCP currently covers approximately 250,000 acres of partner-managed land in central and northwestern Wisconsin. The innovative, statewide approach of the HCP continues to draw national attention.

The adaptive management provisions of the HCP have proven to be its linchpin. Adaptive management makes the HCP dynamic and flexible, and it allows partners to have confidence that the plan will grow with their knowledge and experience. Currently, the HCP Team is refining the Karner blue monitoring protocol to ensure that data collection supports long-term HCP goals like no-net-loss-of-habitat.

The voluntary participation strategy, which allows smaller landowners to participate in Karner blue conservation voluntarily, has produced some remarkable results. Free from regulatory pressure, landowners have become more receptive to educational outreach, and many have requested governmental help in pursuing conservation projects of their own. This spirit of collaboration has helped soften public attitudes toward endangered species management in Wisconsin. Check the Participation Strategy Review Report for success stories.

2004-2007

While the first half of the 10-year permit period for the HCP was spent implementing, learning and developing a working relationship between the partnership, DNR and the FWS, the second half has been about implementing adaptive management.

The partnership coalesced during this time period around the knowledge they had gained in implementing the HCP. Improvements where made to virtually all of the HCP provisions.

The partnership formed a Monitoring Improvement Team that researched and built improvements to the monitoring strategy that saves partners valuable resources while providing the scientific data needed to fuel adaptive management expected by the FWS.

Another team focused on improving all of the management guidelines and protocols and combining them into one package called the HCP Users Guide.

While these improvements were being developed, Dave Lentz (WDNR’s HCP Coordinator) was developing a strategic plan for the HCP that would provide a compelling vision for the partnership and garner the support of the FWS. This plan was dubbed the 5-point plan and comprehensively addressed all of the lessons learned from developing and implementing the HCP while staking out a course for the partnership to lead. In 2006 both the partnership and the FWS agreed to the new strategy outlined in the 5-Point Plan.

The first point of this plan was to focus the implementation of the HCP on those areas that would be necessary for long term viability of the Karner in Wisconsin. To assist in this the DNR engaged Ted Sickley – University of Wisconsin Forest Ecology Laboratory to develop a Karner blue butterfly habitat probability model. Using the data the partnership had acquired over the past ten years, Ted was able to not only create a habitat probability model, but a defensible probability model of Karner blue butterfly occurrence in Wisconsin. This model was used to re-define the high potential range of the Karner blue in Wisconsin and reduce the regulated land base under the permit by 80%. This improvement resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings to the State and partnership over the permit period.

The second point outlined the need to streamline processes. This is an ongoing part of the adaptive management strategy and the tireless work of Cathy Carnes – FWS and Dave Lentz to make the HCP as easy to implement as possible while still ensuring all of the regulatory requirements are met.

The third point addressed the improvements needed to the guidelines and protocols. These improvements were made through the efforts of another sub-team sponsored by the Partners Implementation and Oversight Committee. The delivery method for these new and improved guidelines was designed by a team of partner and DNR staff and deployed through training at the winter partnership meetings, through the audit process and on the partnerships web site. This improvement made the conservation measures required under the HCP more accessible and easy to understand by the HCP partners and allowed for improved compliance verification.

The last two points of the five point plan address demonstrating the Karner blue is recovered in Wisconsin and renewing the permit. In 2006 the DNR and FWS worked together to acquire funding and hire a Recovery Coordinator for the Karner blue in Wisconsin. The Recovery Coordinator (Bob Hess) has formed a statewide Recovery Working Group and has brought together all of the recovery properties in developing recovery plans and conducting the surveys and management needed to demonstrate recovery of the Karner blue in Wisconsin.

The partnership has begun to discuss and plan for renewal of the permit in 2009.

Results to date

This partnership has long been recognized as an innovative and successful approach to endangered species conservation. Many people are refreshed by the direction this HCP has taken and are energized by the potential of this approach. The partnership has been recognized by the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies. The HCP received the Wildlife Stewardship Award from the American Paper & Forest Industry in 2004 and has been lauded by many industry groups for its focus on cooperation.

The HCP has been featured at many conferences and symposia around the country and its participants have been asked to assist and council others that are developing ambitious conservation plans. Many university faculty and students use the HCP as a case study and compare it to other HCP efforts around the country. Many regulatory agencies are using the HCP as a gold standard to benchmark other efforts.

Elementary school teachers and their students use the Karner blue to about conservation and habitat. Boy and Girl Scout troops create and maintain Karner blue habitat. Garden clubs restore prairies to feature lupine and other species beneficial to Karner blues, and towns, cities and counties engage in not only conserving but featuring the Karner blue as a way to differentiate themselves.

The HCP partnership has done thousands of acres of proactive conservation management on lands the own or manage in Wisconsin. The amount of occurrences of Karner blues has increased over 15 fold to more than 500 known populations in the state.

The success of this program can be attributed to the hard work on behalf of the partners, FWS and DNR. The individuals that represent the parties have spent years working together toward the common goals of the partnership and, together have learned to implement and improve this HCP.

The Future of the HCP

The partners are excited about the future. In many respects, difficulties are in the past, and the plan can be viewed as an unprecedented success. Plum Creek trumpets the HCP as a model among the 400+ HCPs in which it participates. International Paper has produced a television segment on the topic and is considering the production of other videos. Alliant Energy, Adams-Columbia Electric Cooperative, and American Transmission Company have joined together to restore habitat on a property they share. County forests have partnered with Utilities to develop dispersal corridors for shifting mosaic function. Townships have devoted some of their limited resources to conservation of this butterfly. Partners have devoted time, money and other resources to go above and beyond their HCP commitments, including helping to support recovery. For many partners, the HCP is a point of pride.

To its credit, the FWS has been open to improving the HCP and recognizing partners for their goodwill contributions. The FWS regularly showcases Wisconsin's HCP to train staff and others on successful HCP processes. Over time, the FWS has become comfortable with the HCP as a living document. The FWS has joined the DNR and other HCP partners in working toward shared goals truly as a partnership.

The State of Wisconsin has continued to support and work for the partnership committed to ensuring its success. DNR leadership have recognized the value of this program not only for the conservation it achieves, but also for the relationships it has fostered, the innovation it has spurred and the vision for the future it promises.

The stage is set for permit renewal. The 10-year life of the permit is set to expiries on December 31, 2009. The DNR is working with the FWS to determine the process for renewal and the partnership is beginning to assess the HCP to date and determine what they would like a renewed permit to look like.

In the end, the success of the HCP will depend on the relationships that led to its creation. Cooperation between local, state and federal agencies, private companies, non-profit organizations and individuals is what made this process work, and the trust built between these groups has made future successes possible. Continued flexibility will allow this trust to grow.