by Melanie Weiss

WBA is often asked by both teachers and parents how to responsibly rear butterflies in our area.  It is a great question and demonstrates the growing awareness of some of the problems that may arise with this activity.  Unless you are able to find butterfly eggs or caterpillars in the wild to rear and release, commercially distributed butterflies seems to be the only other option.  However, there are risks in releasing commercial or introduced species into the environment.  WBA reached out to the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife’s  butterfly, moth and bumble bee wildlife biologist.  They shared a letter they had written to a young child and his mother who asked the same question. With their permission we share their response below. The content and suggestions should answer most questions that may arise.   Please feel free to contact us if you need additional information.

A special thanks to the biologist who generously shared their letter. 

When my 8-year-old child was in second grade, they received a butterfly kit from their grandparents. The kit included caterpillars of the Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_cardui) along with a cup to grow the caterpillars in and a pop-up net enclosure to raise and view the adult butterflies as they emerged. We watched them grow through each life stage from very tiny caterpillars (larvae) to very large fat caterpillars, to chrysalises (pupae) and finally emerged into adult butterflies.

At that time, I did not work for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, but as a trained biologist.  I knew that releasing captively reared animals into areas where wild butterflies are flying may cause problems for wild butterflies. So, my child and I did not release them and instead provided them with food (orange slices) and shelter (net enclosure) and let them live out their short (~ 8-12 days) adult life until they died naturally in captivity. After they died, we buried them in our garden, and my child and I talked about the life cycle and how now the nutrients in the butterfly body would feed the soil and help our plants grow. There were many learning opportunities with this project and while my 8 yr old was sad that we couldn’t release the butterflies into our Seattle neighborhood, they understood that a captive butterfly could carry diseases and parasites and do potential harm in other ways to wild butterfly populations. 

You may not know, but you would need a permit to release wildlife in the State of Washington with approval from our directory (WAC-220-450-010; https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx? cite=220-450-010; previously known as WAC232-12-271. Approval of permits by our director would only be approved if it was determined that there would be no adverse impacts on wildlife. Release of animals, and in this case butterflies, is regulated because commercially produced animals have the potential to negatively affect wildlife in several ways:

1.  Commercial butterflies have the potential to transmit diseases to wild butterfly populations. While butterfly producers typically won’t ship species with obvious diseases and take precautions to ensure their captive populations are disease free, this does not limit the transmission of new strains of diseases, which can then be transferred to wild populations.

2.  Release of commercially distributed butterflies makes it hard to understand wild butterfly distribution patterns, making it difficult to study how our wild species naturally occur in the environment. This can also make it hard to study how weather patterns and climate change might impact distributions and the biology of wild butterflies.

3.  There is also the potential for harmful inbreeding between wild and commercially produced butterflies. Multiple generations of captive butterflies can be reared in captivity, and traits that benefit butterflies in artificial conditions may not be traits that benefit wild populations. If breeding between wild and commercially reared butterflies occurs, it could negatively impact the genetic make-up of wild butterflies.

I think learning about the risks of releasing captive or introduced species into our environment is an important learning opportunity. You can share this knowledge with your friends, family members and teachers!  I think butterfly kits provide a unique opportunity for kids (and adults) to learn about the amazing life cycle and biology of butterflies while teaching us important lessons about conservation and environmental stewardship.

There are many resources online to learn more about this topic and to learn more about the incredible butterfly diversity here in Washington State. Check out our Identification page to get started.

Best of luck in your learning and thank you for reaching out to us!