He's aflutter for saving rare butterflies

BAHIA HONDA KEY, Fla. -- For more than a year, Bahia Honda State Park biologist Jim Duquesnel traversed the nature sanctuary with two hopes. He wanted to see a Miami blue butterfly and rid the Florida Keys outpost of as many iguanas as he could.

The reason: The Central American invader may be driving the Miami blue into extinction by eating the leaves where it lays its eggs -- a bit of butterfly caviar in every bite.

No confirmed Miami blues have been seen on Bahia Honda since July 2010, and it's becoming less likely any exist there. In August the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued an emergency listing of the Miami blue as an endangered species and three similar butterflies -- cassius blue, ceranus blue and nickerbean blue -- as threatened.

Federal officials noted that the only surviving Miami blue population appears to be a few hundred living in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge, 50 miles west of Bahia Honda.

Still, Duquesnel has tried to keep hope alive, and eradicate the iguana from his 600-acre park in the Middle Keys. Perhaps, he says, a half dozen Miami blues survive on some corner of the island, waiting for the right weather to emerge.

Duquesnel wants to make the park's environment better for all butterflies landing there. "Even if Miami blue goes extinct, we should still remove iguanas," he says. -- AP