For more than 25 years, the folks at the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park have been dedicated to three things: protecting the endangered Karner blue butterfly, educating the public on environmental conservation, and getting people outside to enjoy nature.
“We would like people to get out to see all of the things we have to offer, and not just the Karner blue butterflies,” says Tori Herkalo, the Preserve’s education coordinator.
Camp Saratoga Blue Trail at Wilton Wildlife Preserve • Photo: Nicholas Chowske
The Karner blue butterfly was federally listed as endangered in 1992, and the Wilton Wildlife Preserve was founded shortly after as a non-profit organization tasked with conserving the land it lives on. Since then, the Preserve has blossomed into an outdoor education and recreation hotspot and has a number of recreation opportunities for people of all ages.
With more than 25 miles of trails, they have become a destination for local hikers and trail runners. “It’s mostly hiking, but we do have mountain biking at the Kalabus-Perry parcel, and that’s become very popular out there,” Herkalo says. For people interested in trying snowshoeing or cross-country skiing for the first time, the Preserve offers equipment rentals at their Camp Saratoga parking area.
Camp Saratoga • Photo: Nicholas Chowske
“We also encourage people to do our Great 8 Trail Challenge, as well,” Herkalo says. In the spirit of the Adirondack 46ers and Lake George 12sters, people who complete the challenge by hiking all eight of the Preserve’s trails can receive a special Great 8 trail patch. “It shows the variety of trails that we have at Wilton Wildlife,” she says. “Although we are a part of the Saratoga sand plains ecosystem, the habitats on each trail are vastly different, so we encourage everybody to see each one - you can finish it all in one day, or you could spread it out over the course of the entire summer.”
Conservation and education are a major part of what goes on at the Preserve. “We do a lot of educational programming, which is mostly free,” Herkalo says. Each week, the Preserve offers programs aimed at getting kids outside to explore nature. In addition to their Pre-K Nature Hour and Nature Craft Hour, they also feature a Pond Discovery Hour every Friday at the Perserve’s Delegan Pond. “We have kids get outdoors and look into the pond to see if they can find any critters,” she says. “We’re encouraging people to get their hands dirty and dig through the muck of the pond to find tadpoles, frogs, turtles, salamanders, crayfish, and things like that.”
A Karner blue butterfly at the Wilton Wildlife Preserve • Photo: Nicholas Chowske
One of their more popular programs in the summer months are the Karner blue butterfly walks. “Right now, we are at the peak of our Karner blue butterfly season, and that is probably about our busiest time of year,” Herkalo says. “We’re doing school field trips and public programs - getting everybody at the preserve to see that there’s an endangered species right in our backyard - not in Africa or Asia, but impacting us right here.”
While recreation and education have become mainstays of the Preserve, their primary goal is protecting the Karner blue butterfly. “Karners are in the areas that are good for the wild blue lupine, which is the only thing the caterpillars eat,” says Kathleen O'Brien, wildlife biologist and herp and invertebrate unit leader with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “So, they are tied to that plant, and that plant is tied to well-drained, mainly sandy areas with lots of sun.”
The Wilton Wildlife Preserve partners with three different land owners - New York State, Saratoga County and the Town of Wilton - to manage what is known as the Saratoga sand plains ecosystem. This ecosystem, known for its loose, sandy soils, developed thousands of years ago when the last glaciers melted and deposited tons of sediment. “We were left with this big area of sand, and it blew into dunes and eventually got covered in plants that are able to live in very dry areas,” O’Brien says. These dry areas were prone to fires, which kept larger plants and trees from dominating the blue lupine plant. “Lupine is very adapted to fire, and it’s dependent on fire to keep things from encroaching into it and taking over,” she says.
As people began to move in, develop these areas and avoid fires, the lupine began to die out, and with it, the Karner blue butterfly. “Karner blues became confined to smaller and smaller areas, so they grew endangered,” O’Brien says. “They were just in places where, accidentally, human management was keeping land open, like a powerline or the back of somebody’s property where they would go once in a while with a mower because they wanted to keep the trees out.”
Photo: Nicholas Chowske
Since 1994, shortly after the Karner blue was added to the endangered species list, a team of dedicated conservationists, biologists and volunteers has been restoring the ecosystem to what it once was. “We’re taking out the competing trees that would not normally have been there, and replanting lots and lots of blue lupine and grasses, and in some cases a lot of the nectar species that the butterflies use,” O’Brien says. “When we started doing our management, we went from little scattered places to big open tracts of good habitat, and so the population has responded well to that, as did their cousins, the frosted elfins, which are threatened, and also feed on lupine.”
The Wilton Wildlife Preserve is now home to a number of endangered and threatened species, including the frosted elfin butterfly, eastern hognose snake, and eastern spadefoot toad, all of whom rely on the loose, sandy soils of the sand plains to survive.
The Preserve works closely with the DEC in assisting with their conservation efforts, and relies heavily on its volunteers to do so. “We have a large volunteer corps, and we’re always accepting new volunteers to get involved,” Herkalo says. “Some of it’s conservation work, and some of it’s assisting us with educational programs, but we wouldn’t be able to operate without our volunteer base - it just wouldn’t be possible - so we’re grateful for them.”
Karner blue butterfly • Photo: Nicholas Chowske
Everyone’s efforts have been paying off for the little blue butterfly, as their populations continue to soar. “I think they’re doing really well because we do see them all the time on the trails,” Herkalo says. “If people come on our butterfly hikes, they’ll end up landing on people just from walking on the trails and being a little bit sticky and a little bit sweaty, they really enjoy that, so we see plenty of them here.” Although the first brood of Karners has already hatched, it’s not too late to catch them, as there will be a second hatching in the beginning of July.
