Erica Henry, postdoctoral researcher in environmental science, carefully lifts the netting from the side of the small, improvised tent and squirms underneath.

Once partly inside, she begins to poke among the grasses and tiny, wild violets in search of rare caterpillars transplanted weeks earlier from a special breeding program at the Oregon Zoo.

That caterpillar carries the hopes and efforts of state and federal agencies, the zoo and dozens of other partners to keep the Oregon silverspot butterfly from extinction.

Henry estimates 200 butterflies will emerge this summer from the grass fields near Yachats.

Researchers with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have been have been studying and trying to revive the declining population of the Oregon silverspot since 1980, when it was put on the federal threatened species list.

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