ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo. — At a high alpine lake here, researchers with clipboards and pens are conducting painstaking surveys that may be essential for saving butterflies and other insects from extinction.
“Someone has to stand up for the little guy,” Elise Willcox, 29, said on a recent morning as she hiked around it. She was scanning intently — “eyes attuned to anything flying around” — for the fluttering bright wings of wood nymphs, fritillaries, and the Rocky Mountain Parnassian.
“If invertebrates disappear, that’s a big problem for us humans.”
