Joint Base Lewis-McChord
JBLM

DoD-LogoThe Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) Fish and Wildlife Program has set goals to maintain training mission requirements and also preserve the habitat conditions necessary to support viable self-sustaining populations of flora and fauna. Preserving and restoring healthy ecosystems supports military training by making more training areas available—healthy habitats are resilient and can accommodate or even benefit from occasional disturbance. Of course, preserving and restoring healthy ecosystems benefits native biodiversity. JBLM retains a mosaic of habitats including late-successional forest, wetlands, and rare Salish lowland prairies. This mosaic supports a large number of plants and animals, including several rare, threatened, and endangered species.

Balsamroot and western buttercups light up the JBLM prairie. Photo by Rod Gilbert.

JBLM is a vital participant in many of SPP’s past and present conservation programs.

Jim Lynch, field biologist for the Fort Lewis Fish and Wildlife Program, is one of SPP's most dedicated and effective partners.

Jim Lynch, field biologist for JBLM’s Fish and Wildlife Program, is one of SPP’s Senior Advisors

JBLM is working to protect the federally endangered species Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly. This butterfly was historically abundant throughout the Willamette Valley-Salish Sea Trough-Georgia Basin ecoregion, but has now been reduced to only a few scattered populations throughout its range. Of these populations, most have less than fifty individuals. The only remaining population considered robust enough to serve as a source of animals for captive breeding is on the artillery impact area at JBLM.

A substantial portion of the funding for SPP’s Conservation Nursery programs comes from JBLM, either directly or as a sub-contract through the Army Compatible Use Buffer program and the Center for Natural Lands Management. JBLM employs skilled biologists who have identified and cataloged the flora and fauna on base for decades, and have made vital contributions to the knowledge and practice of ecological restoration in the region.

Mount Rainier adds to the beauty of the prairie blooming at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Photo by Jaal Mann.