ALBUQUERQUE (AP) – Federal officials plan to study the status of a butterfly once found across the Southwest to see if it warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will conduct a 12-month review of the Great Basin silverspot butterfly.
Environmentalists had petitioned the agency to consider the butterfly’s status, saying it has been losing habitat because of development, grazing, mining and changing hydrological conditions.
With its black markings, the orange-brown butterfly lives in streamside meadows, seeps and wetlands in the high desert. It uses the nectar of thistles and horsemint.
Federal biologists say the butterfly is found in Southwest Colorado and on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico. Historically, it was also found in northern New Mexico and eastern Utah.
