The Fish and Wildlife Service will conduct a one-year status review of the Iowa skipper butterfly to determine whether it deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Contrary to its name, the Iowa skipper can be found in prairies spanning 14 states, including Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
The action came in response to a 2023 listing petition filed by the Center for Food Safety that suggested pesticides, invasive species, climate change, fire and prairie management, and small, isolated populations may all be threats to the butterfly.
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Sylvia Wu, co-executive director of CFS, said protecting butterflies like the Iowa skipper is “paramount to the health of the nation's remaining grassland habitat and the other sensitive species that depend on it.”
In 2014 CFS petitioned the agency for protections of the monarch butterfly, and in 2020 FWS announced that ESA protection was warranted but precluded by other higher priority actions.
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