What’s the Point of Saving One Butterfly Species?
This article was originally published in High Country News.From the top of Pigeon Butte in western Oregon’s William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, the full width of the Willamette Valley fits into a gaze. Slung between the Coast Range and the Cascades, the valley is checkered with farmland: grass-seed fields, hazelnut orchards, vineyards. In the foreground, however, grassy meadows scattered with wildflowers and occasional oaks trace the land’s contours.