Driven Away by Lack of Foliage : County’s Butterflies Seeking Greener Pastures

Orange County’s increasingly developed landscape and trimmed foliage cannot support the area’s once diverse and plentiful butterfly population, an entomologist said at a UC Irvine symposium this weekend.

Older neighborhoods have more diverse foliage and can support a wider spectrum of butterflies, but in Orange County, “People don’t want to plant anything that takes any sort of care,” entomologist Larry Orsak told an audience of 130 people Saturday.

The day-long symposium was focused on Orange County’s natural history and the problems native wildlife faces because of the county’s rapid urbanization.

Eggs Need Protection

Butterflies cannot feed on low-maintenance plants such as ivy and juniper, said Orsak, who wrote “The Butterflies of Orange County, California,” published by UCI in 1977, when he was an undergraduate at the university.

Short-cropped residential lawns will not protect butterfly eggs, added Orsak, who is now an entomologist with Scientific Methods Inc., an agricultural consulting firm based in Durham, near Chico.

“Planned communities never have planned vacant lots,” he joked.

Still, Orsak said, just a few inexpensive changes could produce hidden breeding grounds for the county’s butterfly population and bring the more diverse species down from the Santa Ana mountains, to which many butterfly species have retreated.

Freeway rights of way and industrial parks are ideal locations to introduce native county plants and other flowers that will bring the butterflies out of the hills and canyons, he said. He also suggested growing certain plants that would attract a particular butterfly species to one’s yard. Plumbago and wisteria, for example, will attract the Bernardino Blue butterfly, while passion vines will draw the Gulf Fritillary.

The goal is to increase the butterflies in the urban county area through promoting the right foliage, he said.

“If we do that, we will continue to have butterflies feed in Orange County, mate in Orange County, and, hopefully, watch us for a few more generations,” he said.

The symposium included scheduled speakers on plants, insects, seashore life, breeding birds and mountain lions. It was co-sponsored by the Natural History Museum of Orange County and the UCI Student Activities office.