Landowner Stories

The Butterfly Barn: Giving Back to Nature

Delaware Highlands Conservancy holds an easement on the property of the Butterfly Barn, a nature center in Milanville, PA where volunteers of all ages work every year to raise and release about 400 monarch butterflies, and the public participates in fun and educational programs.

In late 1996, a conservation easement protecting 12.5 acres of riverfront land was donated to Delaware Highlands Conservancy. The owner will continue to live there, but will never subdivide the land into smaller lots, and the property may only be used for agricultural or educational purposes, such as the Butterfly Barn. Wondering who donated the easement? It belongs to Barbara Yeaman, Conservancy founder.

On November 3, 2003, Leonard and Avis Rolston of Milanville released the last adult monarchs reared in our Butterfly Barn nature center that year, including a small female who came to be named "Lucky." En route to Florida, the Rolstons parked at a rest stop near Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina and freed nine winged passengers. Every summer, with the help of local children, we rescue monarch eggs and larvae from threatened habitats and rear them in individual containers in the Butterfly Barn near Milanville. Our work generally involves rearing and releasing about 400 butterflies.

"Lucky," one of the nine, had disappeared into thick grass in mid-September when her container was knocked over. Just a 3/16" long caterpillar, she miraculously turned up the next morning on a discarded milkweed leaf.

We not only feed each caterpillar fresh milkweed leaves and clean its cage when needed, but we keep records of each individual. That way we can identify "hot spots" for egg deposition, and trace "hot spots" of viral and bacterial infections. We also discover the locales and times of year that monarch caterpillars are parasitized by tachinid flies.

"Tachinids" are a large family that parasitizes caterpillar pests, but also contains species that lay eggs on monarch caterpillars. We’ve learned, for example, that a "hot spot" for tachinids that attack monarchs is a hillside farm about two miles from the Butterfly Barn.

In general, we hold back and feed monarchs that hatch after mid-October until we can ship them south with the Rolstons during the first week of November. This year the Rolstons ferried their passengers until "it was 78 degrees, and they were ready to go. Seven took off and two took their time," they noted.

To learn more about work of the nature center, visit our website, ButterflyBarn.org, which has a "children’s corner," a program schedule, and much more, including pages that track this year’s monarch migration in our region.

In exchange for restricting subdivision and donating an easement to Delaware Highlands Conservancy, landowners are eligible to receive a significant federal tax deduction. In this way the IRS rewards owners for conserving valuable agricultural land, scenic views, wildlife habitat, recognized historic sites or wetlands and water quality. The Conservancy will then ensure that the conditions of the easement are respected in perpetuity.