Healthy Habitats
The Karner Blue is an endangered species of butterfly that lives in the North Eastern part of the United States, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, New York, and New Hampshire. The butterfly was put on the federal endangered species list in 1992, yet we haven't really seen the popualtion change for the better. Our plan connects building and growth of business with sustainable healthy habitats for this beautiful butterfly.
Thank you for taking a look into our page! Our names are Liza Morris and Nicole Carlson, this semester we wanted to create a project to restore habitat for the Karner Blue Butterfly, therefore boosting the population. We followed the design thinking process in order to come up with a plan that would not only benefit the butterfly population, but other pollinators, and businesses. Below are the steps we took, along with the thought processes we went through to come up with our plan to create healthy habitats.
Habitat
The Karner Blue Butterfly only lays eggs on Wild Lupine, an early blooming plant native to oak savannas. Due to fire suppression and building development in these areas, there is about 90% less lupine than there was a century ago. By introducing more Wild Lupine, it is our hope that the Karner Blue population will once again flourish.
Living With The Land
Living, or green roofs have become something of a novelty here in America; however, for decades people in Europe have been utilizing roofs for gardening and greenery. With updated technology, green roofs can now offer amazing benefits; such as: maintaining storm water runoff, longer lasting roof membranes, reducing the urban heat island effect, and increased biodiversity of local wildlife.
Design Thinking
Interviewing Stakeholders
Biologist - Dr. Heather Keough
We talked with Dr. Keough who manages and restores the connectivity between common Karner Blue landscapes in the White Cloud district. She pointed out that Karner Blue butterflies need diverse microclimates and diverse wildflowers types in order for the habitat to be suitable. She also noted that it will be difficut to bring in new Karner Blue metapopulations since they are an endangered species and it is a long process to relocate species, so finding an already existing group in the area is ideal. She made us aware that this is a long-term investment and that having people who support and understand the project are essential.
Stakeholders (continued...)
Garden Caretaker - Prakash
We talked with the caretaker of the rooftop garden at The Village of the Pines in Grand Haven, MI. Overall, he said that managing a garden is a lot of work and that while working through our project we need to keep in mind the people who have to care for the gardens. Additonally, the caretakers often have little to no say in what is put into the gardens, so working with building owners who make the deicsions for the gardens is a better route.
Owner of Company that creates Green Roofs - Nate GrisWorld
Moving forward we will work with Inhabitect to create "pre-packaged" rooftop gardens that will be installed for building owners and are a suitable environment for the Blue Karner Butterfly to help increase their population numbers
Diagramming The Problems
We decided that our biggest problems are people, environment, materials, management, and process. We broke these down by using a fishbone diagram to list out each problem that these stem from. Humans have had a lot of interference on the butterflies, from building developments to fire suppression. Along with the environment favoring forests over grassy savannas, this has not been easy on the species. Materials, such as the wild lupine have not been managed properly for the butterfly, therefore making it onto our problems list. Thus our process in rehabilitating the butterflies must take all of this into consideration before moving forward with our project.
Our Plan
Since talking with our stakeholders we have shifted our plan to making a type of green roof which will be installed especially for butterfly habitation. The National Wildlife Federation recognizes suitable butterfly and pollinator habitats by awarding the owners of the garden a plaque stating they have a Certified Wildlife Habitat. The owner of the company that creates green roof would use this information to sell the "butterfly roofs" instead of a regular green roof. In exchange, these plaques will help the company in the public eye, as well as boosting awareness of the butterfly itself.
We would also like to work with the Fish and Wildlife service further, offering a subsidy for those who install these green roofs. They would have to have multiple microclimates, like Dr. Keough shared with us; Some shaded areas as well as full sun. The roofs will also need multiple species of flowers. The most important flower being Wild Lupine, however Black Eyed Susans, Butterfly Weed, New Jersey Tea, and Milkweed are a few more that the butterflies are attracted to.
We would like to work with Inhabitect, because the owner, Nate Griswold, believes in creating the easiest to maintain and most sustainable rooftop gardens. To the left (middle) is an image of the Uptown condominiums, in Traverse City, MI that Inhabitect helped design and install. Had we implimented this plan a few years ago, each of these rooftops could have supported wildflowers for the Karner Blue Butterfly.
Overall, our plan is to work with businesses and Inhabitect to make these butterfly gardens available to all who would like to install a green roof. Most of the populations in Michigan are around the Allegan area, so we would start with businesses there. By the time we network and sell enough of the "butterfly roofs" we hope that it will become a staple roof for the company, who also sells in Wisconsin and Indiana.
