Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis recently spoke with Shawn Hunter, a Northwest Arkansas Master Naturalist who co-founded The Diana Project, a grassroots program dedicated to saving the state butterfly, the Diana fritillary. She describes herself as an advocate for the voiceless; she says it’s a tag she uses to drive her work advocating for species that are fundamental to our ecosystems.
Shawn Hunter
There's so many things, especially pollinators, that I've been learning about that need so much from us, but they can't tell us, and even in their way, by disappearing or not being where we expect them to be. They're speaking but they don't have as big a voice as we do. So, it's just one thing I'm trying to do is speak for them. And the Diana Project is my big voice, I guess.
Jack Travis
So, I want to get into the Diana project. But first, maybe could you introduce our listeners to our state butterfly, the Diana fritillary, because, as I've talked about this story with my co-workers, some of them aren't even aware that we have a state butterfly.
Shawn Hunter
So that's funny. My co-founder, Curtis Leister, started with this question. And he has a little spiel that he does. And it starts with, “Do you know the state butterfly of Arkansas?” and about 50% of the people will say it's the monarch and the other half don't know. Literally in the eight months we've been doing this I've met one person who knew what the state butterfly was by name. So, the state butterfly is the Argynnis Diana. That is the scientific name for the Diana fritillary. It's a huge butterfly, it's like the female can get up to four and a half inches wide. It's unique in that it's extremely, the technical term is sexually dimorphic. So, the female is blue and black. And the male is actually orange and brown. So, they don't even look like the same species. We found out that it was threatened because Curtis, he works at the BGA Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, and they have the native butterfly greenhouse, they're in the butterfly house, and that we don't have the Diana in there. And somebody asked Curtis, “What's the state butterfly?” And he didn't know. So, once we got to digging around, we found out that it is threatened with extinction in Arkansas.
Jack Travis
What's threatening them?
Shawn Hunter
Well, there are a lot of reasons. One of the biggest reasons obviously in Northwest Arkansas would be urbanization, just fragmentation of its habitat. Its habitat is pretty unique in that it needs moist forest, habitat, and meadow or prairie with a lot of high nectar flowers. So, it needs a combination of those two things and also needs its native violets which are the host plant for the larva, the caterpillars, and it also needs leaves and twigs in the fall-- actually all winter. So, there's a lot of things that challenge its lifecycle. And it has had several big challenges over the years. It's been steadily declining since probably the early 1900s. From agriculture, urbanization. There was a big to do in the forest industry at the pine forest industry. They had an invasive gypsy moth. And so, they just brought covered insecticide to get rid of that. And it was bad timing, and it really put a dent in the population of the Diana. So multiple reasons.
Jack Travis
If I understand correctly, we're in the midst of a mass extinction of winged insects?
Shawn Hunter
Among other things, yes, we are in that in the middle of losing. Gosh, I don't know the numbers or statistics on mammals and pollinators and birds, you know, just it's scary. Once you get into it, like I started digging into the Diana, where's our butterfly? Because as a Master Naturalist, it was kind of embarrassing to find out that our state butterfly is, according to Game and Fish Commission's last report, since the Arkansas wildlife action plan in 2015, I think was the last time it was updated. And the Diana fritillary is considered at a moderate to high risk of extinction. And so, when I read that, I was like, well, that's embarrassing as a Master Naturalist. And this as a human, it's terrifying to me that the things that we rely on to pollinate our food to keep our planet going. Because, you know, they really are towards the bottom of the food chain. And if we lose our pollinators, we're screwed. We're in big trouble almost. So yeah. And that's, that's really scary. And I guess that's what motivates me. Some of that, when you start learning, and digging into the research and seeing all the numbers, it can get really overwhelming and depressing. So, for me, the Diana project is one thing that I can do to overcome that. I'm just afraid of where conservation has been going. It feels like the more I learned, the more I recognize-- We’re heading in a good direction. I don't know if it's fast enough to save enough pollinators. But it feels like we're moving in the right direction, I see a lot more awareness.
Jack Travis
You're so passionate about the butterfly, where does your passion for pollinators come from?
Shawn Hunter
Um, gosh, I guess I, it might be because I'm so visual. I'm an artist, also. Fine Art, watercolor mostly but so everything attracts my attention, sometimes to my detriment, but I just think that there's, for eons, people have been trying to mimic the natural world. And there's a reason for that, because it's just, it's so amazing. It's, and it never disappoints when you when you can just sit still and look at it. I'm also trying to do a nature journaling class. So that's kind of a side gig. And to help people because I think one of the reasons that we're so disconnected from the danger that we have put our natural world to is because we're so disconnected from it. And I think that nature, journaling and just sitting still, and looking at something in peace and quiet outside is a big way to get people reconnected to that. So, they'll pay better attention. Let's kind of I guess that's where my passion comes from just being in nature, it feels better than not being in nature. Right?
Jack Travis
Right. I'm with you there. Now, tell me about the Diana project, I understand you have a three-year plan?
Shawn Hunter
We do, we have a three-year plan. And that was that was kind of an arbitrary timeframe that I could manage my own time for and that I wanted to commit at least that much time to this project. Sort of to give myself a goal as well. So, in that project, we're basically doing two things. We're gathering people. And we're gathering data. By gathering people, we're offering the Diana project presentation, which is an education about the Diana, its lifecycle its challenges, and what people can do about it. And then the second part of that the gathering data is another presentation that we're doing is INaturalist application, if you're familiar with that, it's an application you can use on your phone or your computer, and you can upload observations, and it helps you identify them, which a lot of people liked that part of it. But the good part about it is that once it's identified, and several people agree upon it, it's actually considered scientific data. So, anybody in the world studying that particular thing, can go in and gather that data and use it. So, it creates citizen scientists for everybody that gets on there. So, our big plan is to have a Diana count next year during June, which is pollinator month. Pollinator week is June 17-23. And we're going to do a Diana count and have as many people trained to use INaturalist, trained to identify the Diana and hit the boots to the ground and get as many sightings as we can across Arkansas. Yeah, that's the goal.
Jack Travis
Where you will be, where will you be sending people? Where will people look for the butterfly?
Shawn Hunter
That's a good question. We have several historical location research papers. And the last one said that Diana was visible in about 29 counties in Arkansas. And so, we have that reference. And we know their habitats, we can pick and choose maybe natural areas, the Arkansas Heritage Commission has natural areas that would be prime locations, state parks, the Hot Springs National Park has invited us to come out and do something. But one of the things I've reached out to the UofA Entomology Department, and there's a program called Maxent. I haven't figured out how to download it yet because it's free software. And it's in beta form right now. But you have to have JavaScript experience and I'm just not that much of a software person. So anyways, I have one volunteer so far from the Entomology Department, and she's offered to help us set it up, but we need a computer to do that. So, I'm hoping to get a donation of a field computer, a laptop, you know, one of those durable ones that you can kick around in the back of a truck. And anyways, so that Maxent software. It's you can put in the existing information like I know it's here, here and here. And then it will take all of the information about the environment of and landscape temperature, humidity, and tell you where else you should look, and you know compare those sites to other places in the world. landscape, you know, in the boundary that you give it Arkansas, and then it can pinpoint places that we should look. That's exciting. So, I'm hoping, knock on wood, that somebody will donate a computer so we can get that downloaded and then learn how to use it.
Jack Travis
So, once you have the count, what do you do next?
Shawn Hunter
That's, that's also a good question. So, I've been in contact with several, what I would say, really important people in the pollinator world of Arkansas. Nick Goforth is Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. There's a lady who runs the Arkansas Monarch Pollinator Partnership. That's a good one. and then Quail Forever. Some people that had these departments, and I'm hoping to present them with information that we have, and say, “Hey, this is what we found.” And we'd like to have a big push, give me a scientist, let's get them all organized, and go out next year, during the flight season, and among the third year, so the third year goal is to tag to collect them, tag them and be able to track them and see where they are and how strong the populations are.
Jack Travis
So, you said people often ask what they can do to help? What can our listeners do? To learn more about your efforts?
Shawn Hunter
Um, probably the biggest thing would be if you visited our website, which is thedianaproject.org. You can find my email-- you can find our social media links. And we also have a list on there. A spreadsheet that you can download that has some of the favorite plants as listed by Miss Laurie Spencer, in her book, The Diana fritillary.
Jack Travis
Well, Shawn, thank you so much for all the work that you do. And thank you so much for being here today.
Shawn Hunter
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
