Creating a butterfly effect : using educational materials and advocacy methods to effect change in order to save New Hampshire's White Mountain butterflies
(Book - Regular Print)

Thesis,MSES,Green Mountain College,2011

Includes bibliographical references.

This study assessed the amount of information available on two endangered butterfly subspecies that exist only in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, New Hampshire. The White Mountain Arctic (Oeneis melissa semidea) and the White Mountain Fritillary (Boloria titania montinus) are glacial relics that have become trapped in the highest elevations of this mountain range due to fragmentation caused by the effects of climate change. A listing petition was researched and written in anticipation of securing protection for these subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. In order to increase public awareness and encourage the preservation of these butterflies, environmental organizations were contacted by the author and encouraged to partner together in these efforts. Educational materials, in the form of five different types of media, were created to be distributed in visitor centers, along trails and online. Organizations will choose which materials to display and how best to display them. Audiences will need to be more specifically targeted with those materials in the future, especially recreationists that often visit the butterfly's habitat. Consistent and continual messages are essential to the visitor education process. State environmental organizations need to work together as a united, balanced front with local citizen scientists to obtain current population trend information and attain federal and state protection for these subspecies.