Why We Don't Buy or Sell Monarchs

By Jim Schwiebert, BCR Naturalist

Beaver Creek neither buys or sells monarch butterflies or caterpillars to the public for a number of reasons.

Photo by Ruth Forsgren.

Butterflies purchased on-line are generally from butterfly farms where mass rearing of monarchs takes place in one facility.  Most of these farms are in the southern states. This can lead to several potential problems.  Mass production, and crowding, makes it easy to transmit diseases especially among larvae.  These diseases are often passed on to the adults - if they live that long.  We don't want to spread diseases from a captive population in the southern U.S. to the wild monarchs that live around here.  We could be introducing strains of pathogens to areas where they would not naturally occur.

Butterflies raised in captivity do not experience the wide range of environmental conditions (temperature, moisture, light intensity, day length, food sources, density, absence of predators, etc.) making them less fit to survive in the wild.  We don't want to introduce inferior genetics into a  population that depends on genetic vigor for survival.

Beaver Creek's entire mission is to educate people about nature. We are not a commercial operation dedicated to raising and selling butterfly eggs, larvae, or adults for profit. All of our butterflies (eggs through adult) are wild collected.  We raise or collect them to populate our Butterfly House, for the sole purpose of educating the public about the wonderful world of butterflies.

So, we encourage you to collect your own eggs or caterpillars.  Raise them, enjoy them for a time, learn about their life cycles, and release them back into the wild.  It's a fantastic and captivating journey shared across generations.  We are always happy to offer help and advice!  Good luck and enjoy your time with the truly fascinating creatures we call butterflies!

Photo by Ruth Forsgren.