Artis Henderson

Special to Fort Myers News-Press

Butterfly lovers across Southwest Florida are breathing a sigh of relief. When Hurricane Irma blew through last September, many feared the worst for butterfly populations, worrying that damage to host and nectar plants would impact butterflies for years to come. After the recent North American Butterfly Association’s summer butterfly count, however, the numbers have revealed that local butterflies, for the most part, are doing just fine.

Butterfly counts are held twice a year and the results are submitted to NABA for its yearly report. The counts are performed by volunteers familiar with the different species found in this area. Though not strictly scientific, the counts nevertheless give a good indication of the state of the local butterfly population.

According to NABA rules, each count site must cover a five-mile radius, so in Lee County tallies in 2018 were taken from the Edison Estates, Lakes Park, Rotary Park and Powell Creek Preserve. Powell Creek Preserve was added for the first time this year. The 2017 totals for the five-mile radius, pre-hurricane Irma, were 19 species and 134 individual butterflies. This year, subtracting out the numbers for Powell Creek Preserve, the totals were 26 species and 388 total butterflies.

Debbie Hughes, senior horticulturist for the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, coordinated the Lee County count and was surprised by the increase over last year.

“Because of the hurricane, I would have thought we had a lot less,” said Hughes.

Her guess as to why numbers are on the rise? Efforts from butterfly enthusiasts in the community.

“Over the last 20 years that I’ve been studying butterflies,” Hughes said, “I’ve seen that the community is doing a concerted effort to plant as many things as they can to attract butterflies. We at the Edison Ford Estates promote the planting of butterfly gardens, and we sell a lot of butterfly plants.”

Butterfly count numbers are often high at the Edison Estates because of their butterfly plants, both in the garden shop and in the gardens themselves. And those plants managed to weather Hurricane Irma better than expected.

“We lost 150 trees,” said Hughes, "but a lot of our butterfly plants tended to be fine.”

At Lakes Regional Park for the 2018 butterfly count, Erin White, executive director of the Lakes Park Enrichment Foundation, split her group of butterfly counters into two teams, one for the landscaped terrain and one for the more natural areas.

“In the natural environment, you get smaller butterflies closer to the ground because that’s where the flowers are,” White said. “In the landscaped areas, you get the bigger, showier ones like the swallowtail butterflies.”

This year the volunteers recorded 18 species and 231 individual butterflies, up from last year’s count of 10 species and 34 butterflies. These numbers might be attributed to the increase in butterfly counters themselves. Last year White’s team had just four volunteers, compared to 20 this year.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples also participated in NABA’s annual butterfly count. Unlike the Edison Estates and Lakes Park, the Corkscrew Swamp doesn’t plant butterfly gardens. Instead, its butterflies rely on native plants and are, in some ways, a better indicator of the health of local butterfly populations.

“We were wondering what what would happen to the numbers because after Hurricane Irma last year counts dropped off significantly,” said Sally Stein, director of public programs for Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, who led the butterfly counts this year. “But now they’ve rebounded.”

The butterfly counting team at Corkscrew identified 39 species and 720 individual butterflies this year versus 34 species and 517 butterflies last year. The latest numbers actually put the swamp right at its 20-year average.

One striking part of this year’s count at Corkscrew: a decline in the number of zebra longwings, Florida’s state butterfly.

“Usually we see quite a lot of them,” said Stein, “but we haven’t seen them since Irma.”

The reason? Damage to butterfly habitats, especially the host plants where butterflies lay eggs that hatch into caterpillars. Zebra longwings use the passion vine as their host plant, and Stein hypothesizes that the vines may be taking a while to recover after the winds and flooding from Irma. Still, she’s optimistic.

“The habitat takes a bit longer to rebound, but it’s coming along. Eventually we won’t be able to tell Irma hit.”

And the increased number of butterflies, she says, is good news for the local ecology.

“Butterflies are an indicator species,” she said. “If they’re doing well, that means a lot of other things are doing well, too.”