Importing farm-raised butterflies?

Anne Kilmer viceroy at GATE.NET
Tue Nov 6 18:41:12 EST 2001


Michael Gochfeld wrote:
> 
> I think that butterfly farms can be a valuable way to encourage
> indigenous people to preserve wildlife habitats by profitting from
> wildlife, but some farms don't actually preserve any habitat.
> 
> In any case, I wonder what it means for them to live their "full natural
> lives before being packaged...."
> 
> I understood they were preserved soon upon eclosion in order to take
> advantage of immaculate condition.
> 
> MIKE GOCHFELD
> 

I've seen the ads; the bug farmers as well as the butterfly farmers
claim them bugs died a natural death. 
Right. 
At the time that the Audubon Society was created, we were told that the
beautiful white feathers that society ladies used to trim their tresses
... the aigrette --- was collected from the mud below the nests of the
egrets who shed them. 
Of course this was nonsense. 
It is also nonsense that these bugs are being allowed to live out normal
lives (ah, the songs of their little children as they play on the front
porch in the evening) before dying naturally. 
We are being assured of this because it is supposed that sentiment,
rather than a concern for a healthy ecology, fuels anti-collection
action, and that, once we realize that the bugs had happy lives, we will
wander off and hug some other tree. 
Me, I can't see any reason why you can't raise butterflies and harvest
them, just as you raise chickens and pigs and cows ... as long as you
don't release gene-altered bugs back into the mainstream. (Yeah, yeah, I
know, we keep being reassured about that one, too.)
I also don't think it's nicer for a butterfly to hang about in a screen
room until it kicks off naturally (we are feeding them and offering
suitable recreation, I hope) than it is for a butterfly to be "gently
killed" as Monty Python would describe it, and displayed in a nice glass
box. 
Either it's ok to kill and display butterflies (cage and display, if you
like) or it isn't, and I don't see all this middle ground we seem to be
attempting to create.
I think they're just bugs, and that creating and preserving habitat is
so much more important that sacrificing a few individuals for the common
good ... why, that just has to be a good idea, doesn't it?  (Or was that
Hitler that thought that? The moral high ground is so tracked up these
days, you forget which were the heroic sentiments, and which the
villains dreamed up.)
Anne Kilmer
South Florida

> soupy wrote:
> >
> > I've seen beautiful displays of preserved butterflies for sale and the
> > seller says they were all imported from South American butterfly farms
> > so that they were allowed to live their full natural lives before
> > being packaged and exported.  I think supporting these farms is a
> > wonderful way to support the rainforests and minimize their
> > destruction.
> >
> > I am interested in creating such displays while being ecologically
> > responsible so I was wondering if anyone in this group knew where and
> > how to locate and contact these farms.
> >
> > TIA,
> >
> > Soupy
> >

 
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