Join us as we search fields and fens, mountains and meadows, even your own backyard, to document the status of Vermont butterflies.
Butterflies were largely a mystery in Vermont before hundreds of volunteer community scientists joined us for the first Vermont Butterfly Atlas (2002-2007), heralding a new era for their conservation. Twenty years later, we are poised to detect changes in their distribution and abundance and provide essential information for environmental management and policy. The 2nd Vermont Butterfly Atlas is a rare opportunity for us to understand long-term trends in butterfly populations and prescribe conservation actions to both keep common species common and reverse the trends for those in trouble.
The Vermont Butterfly Atlas is a five-year survey that is completed every 20 years to document the abundance, distribution and conservation status of butterflies across Vermont with the help of volunteer community scientists. It is part of a network of atlases across the Northeast, spanning from Connecticut through the Canadian Maritimes, giving us a landscape view of the butterfly fauna invaluable for conservation and a priceless snapshot for future comparisons. We are now poised to be the first state or provincial atlas to repeat a butterfly atlas 20 years later.
We need volunteers like you to adopt atlas blocks to thoroughly survey butterflies during the atlas. Volunteers are asked to visit potential butterfly habitats in their adopted priority block(s) at least once per month during the growing season. Observers will obtain photographic and sight records of all butterflies they encounter and submit them to our e-Butterfly site for final verification.
