The Bloomington Ecological Services Field Office and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) signed a Safe Harbor Agreement, in July, for establishing a persistent population of the Karner blue butterfly within an urban industrial area known as the West Gary Recovery Unit. The Unit is located in Lake County, Indiana.

The agreement covers approximately 650 acres and includes remnant patches of dune oak savanna and swale wetland habitat.

The goal of the agreement is to address problems of fragmentation coupled with complex land tenure, and degradation of remaining habitat.  This agreement facilitates implementation of TNC’s strategy for the unit by providing assurances to private sector cooperators signing Certificates of Inclusion.

TNC’s strategy focuses on consolidation, restoration, and reintroduction at three core areas (Ivanhoe, Dupont, and the Tolleston Ridges/Gibson Woods complex) and multiple satellite areas within the unit. 

TNC and other conservation organizations own the three core areas and some satellite areas, but most of the remaining habitat within the unit remains in private ownership without conservation protection or opportunities for habitat restoration.

The Bloomington Field Office is involved in Karner blue conservation through multiple initiatives.  The Northern Indiana Sub-Office developed a Habitat Conservation Plan with the utility industry in the general area.  Staff are currently working with the Shirley Heinze Land Trust through the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program to restore oak savanna for the Karner blue and other species within the unit, and have significant involvement through their contaminants branch. 

Natural Resource Damage settlements against polluters in the Gary area have recently funded purchase of important core and satellite areas within the unit.  

With funding under a Section 6 grant, TNC cooperated with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Nature Preserves, and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in captive rearing and releasing Karner blues within the unit, since 2001.