Dr. Ryan Norris, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, spoke to The Globe and Mail about a project under way to reintroduce the endangered mottled duskywing to Ontario’s Pinery Provincial Park – the first reintroduction program for a butterfly species in Canada.

Last year, Norris received federal funding for a five-year project to reintroduce the butterfly to two locations in southwestern Ontario. Working with experts at the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory in Cambridge, Ont., Norris’s team has developed a captive breeding and rearing program for the insects.

“We want to be able to show that these kinds of species reintroductions are possible, because we’re going to need them,” Norris told the newspaper.

Norris is an ecologist interested in the behaviour and conservation of migratory birds, insects and animals.