Zoo’s butterfly garden has hearts aflutter

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This article was published 24/06/2011 (5436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE unpredictable flash of orange and black from hundreds of monarch butterflies will greet visitors to the zoo this summer.

The Assiniboine Park Zoo’s new butterfly garden is the realization of benefactor Shirley Richardson’s dream. The garden will exist “so the children and all those whose hearts are young and full of wonder can enjoy the magic of butterflies,” Richardson said at the opening Thursday.

But not all the residents of the new garden have arrived.

The zoo intended both tropical and Canadian species to intermingle in the two nylon quonsets that hold the insects. But the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently changed its policy for the admittance of butterflies into the country. Even though the zoo put in a request for a permit to import the tropical butterflies five months ago — much longer than the standard time for such requests — the CFIA hasn’t yet granted permission.

Still, visitors can enjoy 500 monarch and painted lady butterflies in the exhibit, with more soon to come as they mate and lay eggs. As well, 200 black swallow tails and red admirals, also native Canadian species, are on their way. The tropical butterflies, if they arrive, will be larger and feature more exotic colours.

In the meantime, there is lots of colour in the array of semi-tropical flowers that cover the ground in the garden, from leafy red celosia to pink and white pentas to orange zinnias.

The nylon walls of the quonsets allow rain and wind to pass through them, as well as 60 per cent of all natural sunlight. Butterflies use ultraviolet light to navigate through the air.

In the winter, the quonsets will be taken down and then reassembled in the spring.

Eventually, the butterfly garden will be part of a permanent conservatory to be completed by 2013, part of a $200-million redevelopment plan.

Richardson didn’t want to wait until then. Her family donated $300,000 to build the garden.

Richardson has always loved the little creatures and dreamed of having them at the zoo when she used to push her late husband, James Richardson, through the zoo’s botanical gardens in his wheelchair. “They’re kind of ethereal,” she said.

william.burr@freepress.mb.ca