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The Dakota Skipper needs to have Echinacea,
a purple coneflower,

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and there's a lot of purple
coneflower here at Glacial Lakes.

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But about 20 years ago, 15 years ago,

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the Skippers disappeared
through most of Minnesota.

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And there's not a lot known about
why that happened.

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These butterflies have disappeared
from most of their range, gone

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from at least three fourths
of what we know.

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And they're really good indicators
of problems on the prairie themselves.

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Minnesota Zoo
has been interested for several years

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in rearing Dakota Skippers
and trying to get them ready

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to repopulate some of the places
they used to be common.

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Really, in the beginning it was just an
experimental process to see if we could,

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even if there was even a role for rearing

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and breeding of this imperiled butterfly.

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Our strategy here at the Minnesota
Zoo is to get them

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through their really sensitive
larval stages,

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keep them protected from predators,
diseases and all those other threats

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that they would be facing out
in the Minnesota prairies

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until they reached
their adult stage have never been tried

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before in any real scope.

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As we now have grown,
we are at the stage where we will.

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We are doing reintroductions,
trying to reestablish lost

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populations
of Dakota Skippers into the wild.

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We've chosen three initial
release stations that were putting

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the butterflies out.

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And of course the end goal
is that the whole 2000 acres

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of continual grassland
is occupied by the Dakota Skippers.

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Without the habitat

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we don't have any chance of
of bringing the Dakota Skipper back.

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And our part of the partnership
was to make sure our habitat

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was as good as we could make it
in the time that we had.

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So the fact that it's so large,

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that was one of the big reasons why
we chose it, but also the fact that it has

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this amazing native plant community
that is still here.

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We can learn what it takes to make
good prairie and bring these species back.

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It's going to be helping us
bring lots of other things back as well.