What can we help find?

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Butterflies

Small blue butterfly with two rows of white-rimmed black dots on the underside of its wings, drinking from a flower
Conservation

Mission Blue Butterfly

Remaining populations of Mission blue butterfly are found in only a few locations around the San Francisco Bay area.
Small reddish-brown butterfly resting on a leaf

San Bruno Elfin Monitoring Leads to New Clues and Questions at Milagra Ridge

The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy’s Park Stewardship Program has been keeping tabs on San Bruno elfins at Milagra Ridge since 1999. 

Orange, black and white monarch butterfly seen landing on purple milkweed flowers.
Article

Here's what we're doing to help protect monarch butterflies

You can almost hear the resounding cry from the East Bay to San Mateo County to Marin: Let's help the monarchs! From our own backyards to the undulating landscape around Mt. Tamalpais, Parks Conservancy staff, partners, and our parks community are marshaling resources to study and help monarch butterflies.
Mission blue butterfly larvae.

Celebrating Signs of Resilience in Mission Blue Butterfly Populations

From 2017 through 2020, Milagra Ridge was the site of an ambitious translocation project to boost it’s declining population. Last year, Mission blues were translocated for the first time into a previously unoccupied habitat painstakingly restored by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy’s Park Stewardship Program. So far, the translocation...

A park ranger walks in a green field on a clear day. The blue sky is visible behind rolling hills.

Marin project aims to save monarch butterflies

Marin Independent Journal

The National Park Service, Marin County Parks and community partners including One Tam and the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy will be leading a variety of projects throughout Marin County this spring and fall aiming to bring western monarch butterflies back from the brink of possible extinction.

Small blue butterfly with two rows of white-rimmed black dots on the underside of its wings.
Article

Lupine and butterfly nets: Step-by-step on how we're helping save endangered Mission blue butterfly

A look at the painstaking work that goes into preserving habitat for the federally endangered Mission blue butterfly.
Small reddish-brown butterfly resting on a leaf
Conservation

San Bruno Elfin Butterfly

The San Bruno elfin butterfly is a U.S. federally listed endangered subspecies that inhabits rocky outcrops and cliffs in coastal scrub on the San Francisco Peninsula.
Mission Blue Butterfly
Our Work

Mission Blue Butterfly Translocation Project

The Mission blue butterfly is a federally endangered species that occurs in coastal grasslands from Marin through San Mateo Counties in central California. Watch the video to learn more about a project to bring populations at these sites to robust, self-sustaining levels.
Mission blue butterfly (Icaricia icariodes missionensis)
Park E-Ventures Article

Five Lessons I Learned from the Mission Blue Butterfly

This winter the Golden Gate National Parks will be planting over a thousand lupines, the host plant of the endangered mission blue butterfly. As we prepare for this restoration work, a Park Stewardship manager reflects on the big lessons he’s learned from this little butterfly.