Long
gone from their home in San Francisco, the California pipevine swallowtail is
back thanks to one man transforming his yard into a habitat for them

The
iridescent blue wings of the California pipevine swallowtail are considered by
collectors to be among the most magnificent in North America.

For
centuries the beautiful butterfly thrived in the San Francisco and around the
Bay Area. But as the region became increasingly urbanized in the early 1900s,
the pipevine swallowtail began to disappear. Today it’s an extremely rare
sight.
Aquatic
biologist Tim Wong at the California Academy of Sciences has made it his
personal mission to bring the butterfly back, and he’s off to a very promising
start.

In
2012, he set out on a quest to find California pipevine, the pipevine
swallowtail’s sole food source, which had disappeared in tandem with the
butterfly in the city.
“Finally, I was able to find this plant in the San Francisco Botanical Garden,” Wong tells Vox.com. “And they allowed me to take a few clippings of the plant.”
Wong
propagated the plant in his backyard, weeding, watering and tending it until he
had created a pipevine swallowtail paradise.
“I built a large screen enclosure to protect the butterflies and to allow them to mate under outdoor environmental conditions — natural sun, airflow, temp fluctuations,” he says.

“The specialized enclosure protects the butterflies from some predators, increases mating opportunities, and serves as a study environment to better understand the criteria female butterflies are looking for in their ideal host plant.”
After
their habitat was ready, Wong scouted our 20 caterpillars from a few residences
outside the city with more vegetation and collected them (with permission).
He
carefully transported them home and set them loose in their new feeding and
mating grounds.

About 6
weeks later, the hungry caterpillars turned into butterflies, and the females
began laying tiny red eggs on the stems of the pipevine plant. Success!




After
several generations, the butterflies began to multiply exponentially.
Having
more than he knew what to do with Wong stared donating caterpillars to the
Botanical Gardens, where their food originated from.

At
first he brought them in by the hundreds. Now, he brings them in by the
thousands, every few months.
While
other conservationists have repopulated the pipevine butterfly in neighboring
Santa Cruz and Sonoma counties, Wong has made the first and only successful
attempt in San Francisco. In the late 1980s, a woman named Barbara Deutsch
tried to reintroduce the species with 500 caterpillars, but they vanished after
a few years.
Wong
attributes his success to the habitat he’s created for the caterpillars. In the
past 7 years, he’s cultivated more than 200 California pipevine plants, with no
herbicides or pesticides and lots of weeding by hand.

“Improving habitat for native fauna is something anyone can do,” Wong says. “Conservation and stewardshipc an start in your very own backyard.”
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