Watching Washington Butterflies With Bob Pyle: Number Seven:

Last fall, on my book tour for Mariposa Road, I gave a reading at Elliott Bay Books. I was delighted to have some children in the audience. But afterward, during the book signing, one young girl seemed pretty sober when I signed her mother’s copy of the book. She shrank back a bit, and had no smile for me when she left, though her mom was warmly polite. This encounter troubled me. A little later I received a letter from the girl’s mother, asking me (on her daughter’s behalf) if I really killed butterflies sometimes, and if so, why?

Dear Bob,

My daughter Hannah (my 9 year old butterfly enthusiast) and I enjoyed your reading from Mariposa Road at Elliott Bay bookstore last month…In the interests of promoting mutual understanding, I feel compelled to apologize for and explain her sullen tone when I introduced her to you. I thought perhaps she was bored and not listening at the reading, but as I later found out, that was not at all the case.

Being young and passionate as she is, she apparently was upset by a passage in your reading which she interpreted to conclude that you were taking specimens of butterflies. It disturbed her to think that anyone might kill a butterfly for the purpose of taking specimens. That is why she was unfriendly when introduced to you. (I’m thankful at least she kept her feelings to herself until we were out of the room, and did not start a debate on the spot!)

I am taking the liberty of emailing you to clarify this issue, in hopes of improving her understanding and feelings about the experience. If you don’t mind my asking, do you take specimens from live butterflies, and if so, can you please tell me, so that I may explain to my daughter, why you feel that is justified for the purpose of scientific inquiry? I am trying to help her to see things in shades of grey, and not always black and white.

Last year, she had to do a report on an explorer or discoverer for school. I thought she might be interested in Darwin, but she rejected him because he took samples of insects.

Sincerely, Lauren

Aha! So that was it. I had mentioned during my reading that I occasionally took voucher specimens during the Butterfly Big Year, and this had disturbed my young listener. Hannah had earlier sent me some splendid monarch drawings she had made, and now I had let her down. I hated to leave her upset. So I wrote back to Lauren, hoping to help her explain to Hannah why we sometimes kill the butterflies we love. Here is my letter, modified for younger readers, in case it helps anyone else to understand this difficult question.

Dear Lauren and Hannah,

Thank you so much for writing me, Lauren, and please forgive me for taking so long to reply. I have been traveling a lot for my book. Thank you too for your very kind words about my writing and reading. I so appreciate you both coming to Elliott Bay to hear me, and to visit.

I did notice Hannah’s unhappy expression, and I suspected the reason might be exactly as you have explained. Thank you for taking time to confirm it; no apologies are necessary. Hannah’s feelings are entirely understandable, and not so distant from some I have felt myself. I knew that she was paying me close attention throughout the reading, and I appreciate her restraint.

Yes, Hannah, I do sometimes take specimens of butterflies. Not very often, but sometimes. We call them “vouchers,” because they vouch for the fact that a particular kind of butterfly has been found in a certain place at a certain time. I explain this in a paragraph in the chapter “Dumpster Diver” in my book Mariposa Road, and also discuss my reluctance about killing butterflies.

This is a great big subject that is often debated among butterfly lovers. The North American Butterfly Association (NABA), publishers of American Butterflies, believes that people should enjoy butterflies through cameras and binoculars, rather than with nets. On the other hand, most members of the Lepidopterists’ Society, the main study group for butterflies and moths, like to use nets. It’s lots of fun, and most of us started catching bugs young. I joined “the Lep Soc” when I was only twelve years old, and like most of its members I was a collector. Years later, I started the Xerces Society, a world-wide club for people who care about butterfly and bug conservation. Xerces is against collecting only when it threatens a whole colony of insects, which is really hard to do, since they make so many more of themselves.

Harming a population of butterflies with a net is about as likely as eliminating mosquitoes with a fly swatter.

But I know that none of this makes you feel much better about it. You probably wonder, after all, why do we kill ANY butterflies, anyway? And why would a butterfly conservationist support butterfly collecting?

People have always gathered insects, as they have other beautiful objects from nature such as shiny pebbles, autumn leaves, or seashells. Some merely assemble and sort them, like stamps. Many others are curious about how butterflies live in nature. Their collections, over the past 300 years, have been important for our knowledge about what kinds of butterflies actually exist, where they live, and what they do. Our field guides, coloring books, and other butterfly books depend in a big way on the great university and museum collections to get their facts right.

Those public collections are made up of many private collections that have been donated to the museums by ordinary butterfly collectors. Even today, we are still learning many amazing new things about our butterflies. For example, there is a little blue butterfly in eastern Oregon and Washington that we have always called “the dotted blue.” It turns out to really be half a dozen or so different kinds of closely related blues, whose caterpillars feed on different types of wild buckwheat plants. They all look alike to us. Only through scientific examination of specimens in the laboratory can we be sure that they are separate species of butterflies.

And why does this matter? Because of conservation! We cannot know how to protect a creature and its habitat unless we know just where it lives. Maps of butterfly ranges are used to help develop regional conservation plans, and to show whether particular places are healthy or hurt. But none of this works unless the butterfly identifications are accurate. In the Butterfly Big Year, I furnished all of my records of butterflies across the country to the various state data bases for conservation purposes. But, as scientists say, “garbage in, garbage out”: unless ID is correct, the maps are junk. Making sure the IDs are reliable sometimes takes lab analysis or dissection. And so, as much as I dislike killing them, this is why I collect some specimens–so that we can know exactly who lives where, and so that we may then protect those places. By sacrificing a few, we may save all the rest. The museum collections also give us the opportunity to study how butterflies are changing under all the alterations that human beings make in the landscape.

A bigger, harder lesson for us to learn, Hannah, is that we all take lives in order to live ourselves, or to make our own lives more comfortable. We swat mosquitoes and flies, spray wasps and ants, and squish or freeze slugs in the garden, but their lives are no less significant than those of butterflies. We pay for people to raise and kill cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens for us to eat, to catch fish, and to cut down trees for lumber and paper. Even if we are vegetarian, we kill plants that have animals living on them; and by raising crops, we kill countless butterflies and other small wildlife by replacing their habitat with fields.

We also kill many bumblebees, dragonflies, and butterflies with our car windshields when we go out for a drive–many more than collectors ever do! All this is sad, but it is also natural. Every kind of animal takes other lives in the course of living, and since we are animals, we do too. Each one of us, as we grow up, must decide (within the law) just what we are willing to kill. Some people decide that killing a few ducks, deer, bass, or butterflies is worth it for them. As for me, I enjoy butterflies much more alive than dead.

But because of what we can learn from them, especially about conservation, I decide to take some voucher specimens now and then.

Butterfly Faces Photos by Robin Lewis

Mostly, Hannah, I like to watch butterflies, or catch and then release them after a good look. Often I let the butterfly go, unharmed, onto a child’s nose–that tickles!

Sometimes, what we can learn from a butterfly specimen means that we decide to make its short life a little bit shorter. But nobody has to do this. Many butterfly lovers just enjoy them alive, watching, taking photographs, or drawing them, as you did with your wonderful monarch pictures. The butterflies and their habitats need both kinds of admirers, the catchers and the watchers. You are free to decide just how you want to enjoy butterflies.

Whatever you choose, I hope you will always keep butterflies close to you in your life.

Your friend, Bob Pyle

Monarchs Illustration by Hannah

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