Now that it’s high season for weddings, it seems a good time to remind folks that releasing butterflies at weddings is generally a bad idea.
Below is a reprint of one of our more popular blog entries from April of last year, right about the time of the Royal wedding.
From reading the news, it doesn’t sound like Will and Kate are doing it, but lots of folks probably will be releasing live butterflies at their weddings this spring.
It’s a way try to make the day special and connected to nature—and it sure seems more appealing than throwing rice or flower petals at the ceremony’s end. As one advertisement proclaims, the effect is “uniquely romantic, genuinely moving, and unforgettable.” Unfortunately, such releases also may be harmful. And not just to the butterflies set free but to the other butterflies native to the location as well.
On one side of the debate are the people who breed butterflies for profit and those who want butterflies for their weddings. On the opposite side are the conservationists who consider the practice a form of environmental pollution.
The butterflies released at weddings more often than not come from the several dozen butterfly farms or ranches across the country. These establishments raise thousands of butterflies each year and ship them overnight in special containers with the insects either wrapped individually in small envelopes or packed together in a decorative box. A typical shipment will include anywhere from twelve butterflies to hundreds, with Monarchs and Painted Ladies being the most popular species.
At a cost of up to $10 per insect, not including shipping, live butterflies are certainly more expensive than rice or flowers. But the added expense doesn’t discourage some couples, especially when they hear that the butterflies released at their wedding will enhance the environment. The act can even be considered benevolent — that is, returning captive creatures to their natural habitat.
Conservationists, though, contest the claims made by butterfly breeders. Aside from a concern that the released butterflies will take food from the mouths of native butterflies, conservationists fear that released butterflies will introduce disease into their native counterparts and alter the native butterflies’ survival mechanism should the two populations interbreed.
Monarchs in Southern California, for example, don’t migrate to avoid a winter chill. So what happens when a Monarch raised in Southern California is released somewhere else? Will it know where to fly when fall arrives? And what will happen when its offspring face their first winter?
Among the organizations opposed to ceremonial butterfly releases are the American Museum of Natural History, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. Yet the practice seems only to be gaining in popularity. The best conservationists can hope for at this time is that, like most fads, this one soon loses its appeal.
So if you know anyone planning a wedding this spring or summer, please share the word. Your local butterflies will thank you!
About a month ago, when I returned to my house in Brooklyn, NY, my driveway and the front of my house were inundated with painted lady butterflies. I wondered why suddenly so many of them should appear. So maybe this explains it…
We’d had painted ladies occasionally, but never more than one or two at a time. Dozens at once was really amazing. It was on a weekend and Brooklyn, being the Borough of Churches, perhaps was the site of a wedding featuring a butterfly release.