Zoo's Receive AZA North America Conservation Award for Poweshiek Skipperling Recovery Efforts
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has recognized the Minnesota Zoo, John Ball Zoo, and Assiniboine Park Conservancy with top honors for the 2025 North American Conservation Award for their groundbreaking and collaborative work to save the critically endangered Poweshiek skipperling butterfly.
Press Assets: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/
The Poweshiek skipperling has become one of the world’s most endangered butterflies, and urgent conservation efforts are essential to ensure its survival. Once one of the most common butterflies across central U.S. and Canadian tallgrass prairies, the Poweshiek skipperling declined steeply over the past two decades due to loss of prairie and habitat quality. It has now disappeared from almost everywhere it once called home.
This “Most Minnesotan butterfly” was last seen in Minnesota in 2007 and is now only known to be hanging on in a handful of isolated locations in Michigan and Manitoba. There has been significant concern about looming extinction, especially as population sizes continued to fall to critically low numbers as recently as 2022 (especially in the U.S.).
Fortunately, the Minnesota Zoo, John Ball Zoo in cooperation with Michigan State University, and Assiniboine Park Conservancy have developed foundational rearing and breeding protocols and are releasing thousands of individuals to stabilize and grow the world’s last populations. The entire U.S. population is now likely derived from just 18 females that existed in Zoo-care at the beginning of the breeding program.
These organizations are bringing new hope for the species’ survival.
“The world would be a smaller, lonelier place without this amazing little butterfly. We seem to have narrowly averted extinction, but the big gains that we have made to help ensure a brighter future for Poweshiek skipperling could have not happened in a vacuum. We are proud to work alongside John Ball Zoo and Assiniboine Park Conservancy and dozens of other incredible partners,” said Dr. Erik Runquist, Conservation Research Scientist at the Minnesota Zoo.
“This award recognizes years of perseverance, scientific innovation, and deep partnership across borders.”
Over the past decade, these organizations have led a coordinated effort that has likely prevented the imminent extinction of Poweshiek skipperling by:
- Releasing thousands of Zoo-reared adults into the last populations in both the U.S. and Canada. For example, over 1,200 adults were released in the U.S. in the summer 2025 and there are promising early signs of early of population growth and recovery.
- Conducting the first-ever reintroductions for the species in Canada (2023) and the U.S. (2024).
- Conducting cutting-edge field research, including developing a unique wing-marking technique to track survival and movement in the wild, sequencing the whole genome of the species and using the data to inform conservation decisions, and conducting research to understand key threats like non-target pesticide exposure, invasive species, and climate change.
- Building strong collaborations and serving in leadership roles through the Poweshiek Skipperling International Partnership (savingskippers.org), aligning dozens of government, academic, and community partners across borders.
The Poweshiek skipperling is listed as an Endangered species in the United States and in Canada and Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. The Minnesota Zoo began working with Poweshiek skipperling in 2012, with Assiniboine Park Conservancy launching a parallel program in 2016 and John Ball Zoo (in partnership with the Haddad Lab of Michigan State University) joining the effort in 2021. All institutions collaborate to help achieve formal recovery criteria developed by the U.S. and Canadian governments.
“Every year, so many staff and volunteers from departments across the John Ball Zoo directly or indirectly support our important work on this project… people driving butterflies, planting host plants, watching breeding trials, troubleshooting incubator issues, and touring groups through the facility,” explained Andy McIntyre, COO of John Ball Zoo.
In Canada, the Assiniboine Park Conservancy has developed a parallel program to rear and release skipperlings into southern Manitoba’s Tall Grass Prairie Preserve — a location that holds the last populations of the species in Canada.
Funding was provided from the Great Lakes Restoration
While challenges remain, the measurable progress seen in 2024 and 2025 — including verified persistence at the reintroduction site and a dramatic increase in wild sightings — provides much-needed optimism for the future of the Poweshiek skipperling.
