President’s Report for 2021-2022

PRESIDENT’S REPORT
(2021-2022)

This is my midyear report (2021-2022) for the Miami Blue Chapter.  My last report was approximately 18 months ago.  I am happy to report that our Chapter has survived Covid-19 and we are back at “full steam.”

• We have had six general membership quarterly meetings since my last report, with a guest speaker at each one. In fact, with Zoom capabilities, we now can have hybrid meetings:  With both in-person and remote participation possible, this expands opportunities for both guest speakers and participants. And we record those presentations. Please see our website for recordings of our recent meetings.
• Numerous spring and summer butterfly counts have been conducted (see results on our website) and three (Pinecrest/Loop Road (6-18), Coral Gables (6-25), SharkValley (7-23)) are scheduled for this summer.
• The Chapter has been very active on the conservation front:i. The “battle” for critical habitat designation for the Florida Bonneted Bat continues. The Chapter is a signatory, along with other conservation organizations, on a recent demand letter (“notice of intention to sue“) addressed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding the latter’s continuing failure to designate critical habitat for this species.  While not obviously a “butterfly issue”, appropriate habitat designation would have the salutatory effect of protecting the bat’s more terrestrial cohorts, including the Florida Leafwing and Bartram’s Scrub-Hairstreak, as well as the highly-endangered South Florida Pine Rocklands.

  ii. As previously noted, in June 2020, working with the City of Coral Gables, we established an experimental pollinator patch at the southwest corner of Bird Road and Toledo Avenue in Coral Gables. We asked the City simply to stop mowing a portion (approximate 30’ x 60’) of an approximate one-acre site which had been recently acquired for a neighborhood park. The recent survey results for insect life, especially pollinators, including butterflies, have been nothing less amazing (see our website for reference to iNaturalist site). At the time of this report, we are working with City Officials to improve/expand the “experiment.” We intend to engage the City’s Community Schools Relations Committee, in this regard.

  iii. Working with our “parent“ organization, North American Butterfly Association, we have partnered with Miami-Dade County ( DERM-EEL), Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, the Institute for Regional Conservation, and others, to restore a highly disturbed pineland in the Goulds neighborhood of southern Miami-Dade County. This site is known as the Calderon Pineland and more information about this ongoing conservation effort appears on our website.

  iv. Chapter members continue to be very active in the annual Schaus’ Swallowtail surveys in the Florida Keys, specifically Upper Key Largo. Our members have taken the “laboring oar” in this regard. And these surveys are active at the time of this writing (June 2022). As previously noted, this effort should not be under-estimated given the abundance of heat, humidity, and mosquitos.

  v. We were included in a recent Miami-Dade County Commission resolution inviting a “partnership” consisting of Florida Power & Light, Miami-Dade County, and the Miami Blue Chapter, in an effort to “develop” certain FP&L rights-of-way as butterfly/pollinator sites. Only initial steps have been taken in this regard; however, we are optimistic that working with these partners pollinator/butterfly protection can be enhanced even in suburban Miami-Dade County.  On a related note, you should know that historically FP&L has been, and continues to be, a supportive partner (both financial and otherwise) of both NABA and the Chapter.

  vi. I currently serve as the Chapter representative on the executive committee of the Imperiled Butterfly Working Group. This group had focused on the conservation of numerous (over 20) Florida butterfly species that are imperiled, most of which are not formally listed as “endangered.”

  vii. We are commencing a campaign to encourage homeowners to stop spraying their yards with pesticides.

• We have recently commissioned the creation of a more artistic and sophisticated logo, and thanks to Kim Heise, we have been successful in this regard. Please see the new logo as it appears on the front page of our website. We expect this logo to be useful in both promoting new membership and advertising the Chapter (perhaps with appropriately “branded” products for sale).

• Your Chapter’s officer “team” was re-elected at our February 2022 meeting, with one exception:  We welcome a new Vice President -Membership, Mary Rankin Jackson, who is already become very active in her new role. And we thank Patty Phares, the immediate past Membership VP for all of her past and continuing hard work for the Chapter.
• In addition to the aforementioned imminent butterfly summer counts, we look forward to having a number of field outings over the balance of 2022 for our membership. Please routinely check our website (“Upcoming Events”) for announcements in this regard.

Dennis J. Olle
Pesident