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Transcript

[Standard Parks Canada Intro]

Text: Waterton Lakes National Park

[Sun rising; with elk walking in the mist. Grey halfmoon hairsteak precedes interview with Cyndi Smith. Clouds roll over a mountain before the butterfly clings to native plants.]

Text: Halfmoon Hairstreak Butterfly

Cyndi Smith, Ecosystem Scientist: The Halfmoon Hairstreak butterfly is found in only two locations in Canada; one population is here in Waterton Lakes National Park on the Blakiston fan, the other population is in southern British Columbia in the Okanogan. And because of that restricted range, low population numbers, and declining habitat the species has been listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act in Canada and so we have an extra duty to protect this species.

Text: Lupine

[Lupine flowers wave in the wind before being contrasted with their invader: spotted knapweed.]

Cyndi Smith: The lupines here, and the solidago, and the eriogonum plants are the larval food source for the caterpillars and one of the issues we have here in Waterton isn’t habitat loss as much as invasive species.

Text: Spotted Knapweed

Cyndi Smith: So we are in a full on battle against invasive non-native plants that are out-competing the native plants that the Halfmoon Hairstreak requires. And so that’s where a major focus of our efforts with this species is - to just make sure that the habitat stays of a high quality and to restore it where we need to by reducing the non-native populations.

[Parks Canada weed crew works to pull out as many spotted knapweed plants as possible.]

Text: Beth Towe, Parks Canada Volunteer

[Volunteer Beth Towe moves about her adopt-a-plot, picking and bagging spotted knapweed.]

Beth Towe: It’s late summer and I’m sitting here on the edge of my personal adopt-a-plot. This is an area that I’ve come to call my own in a manner of speaking as part of the volunteer program for Waterton Lakes National Park. And this little plot is a good example; after three years of picking, together, myself and other volunteers, and Parks Canada of course. We were able to free this little plot of Knapweed for the first time. So it really works, and we need more volunteers to make it happen.

[A halfmoon hairstreak butterfly walks on a native plant species.]

[Interview with Cyndi before clouds roll over the Alberta prairies in Waterton Lakes National Park. Bison graze on the edge of the prairies and a bear grazes berries on a hillside. Halfmoon hairstreak butterflies hang on to the native plants that sustain them and finally clouds roll over the butterfly’s home: the Blakiston Fan.]

Cyndi Smith: Some people do wonder why we would be spending a lot of time and effort on protecting a small invertebrate, but national parks are set up to protect all of the biodiversity that’s found here and that’s regardless of whether it’s a grizzly bear or whether it’s a butterfly. All of the species have their cog in the ecosystem wheel and we don’t know what would happen if we lost some of these species, but we are trying to maintain them in self sustaining populations within a National Park because if we can’t do it here we probably can’t do it outside of National Parks either.

Text: For more information please visit: parkscanada.gc.ca/waterton

Text: Music: Half Moon by Bill Newsinger (http:/soundcloud.com/billnewsinger/half-moon)
Sound Effects: Morsert by Freqman (http://www.freesound.org/people/Freqman/sounds/25078/)
Cymbal roll by David J Woll (http://www.freesound.org/people/davidjwoll/sounds/85486/)

[Standard Parks Canada outro]