The Oregon silverspot butterfly is native to coastal grasslands near the Pacific Ocean.

The Oregon silverspot butterfly is slowly coming back home.

While the wildflowers are still in bloom on Saddle Mountain, I hope to find time to hike again to the summit, and with luck, to see it.

Once common in coastal grasslands between Northern California and southern Washington, the butterfly was listed as threatened in 1980.

It was determined to be extirpated from the Clatsop Plains area of northwest Oregon by 2001 and now remains at only a handful of places in the Pacific Northwest.

One of those is the Saddle Mountain State Natural Area, where the butterflies disappeared in the 1970s and have been reintroduced in recent years.

Because its sloping meadows are home to the native early blue violet, the single plant relied on by the butterfly as a main source of food, the mountain was chosen as a site to reintroduce caterpillars beginning in 2018.

Last year, conservation specialists from the Oregon Zoo released over 2,000 Oregon silverspot butterfly larvae there.

Recovery efforts for the red-orange butterflies marked with silver spots are the subject of a talk at Fort George Brewery at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Samantha “Sam” Derrenbacher, who works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a wildlife biologist, will discuss recent research related to the butterfly’s habitat and efforts to restore it.