Butterfly Farm

About Butterfly Farm

The Penang Butterfly Farm is more than just a tourist attraction. It is set up as a 'live museum' to educate the public as well as a research centre to develop breeding methods. The Farm's founder David Goh explains the philosophy behind its operation

Butterflies are beautiful creatures of the wild. The visitor to the Penang Butterfly Farm, finding himself surrounded by a myriad of fluttering butterflies within a seemingly natural setting, is likely to think himself in a sort of enchanted wilderness, bejeweled with the colorful gems of creation.The main attraction of the Butterfly Farm is undoubtedly the free flying papilions in the enormous enclosure. The visitor can inspect the butterflies at close quarters as they flit around their favorite nectar plants. The exhibition of selected insects and reptiles are also crowd drawers. The visitor, having traversed this complex of displays ends up in a souvenir shop selling butterfly-related paraphernalia. Today, the Penang Butterfly Farm is the first tropical butterfly farm ever set up in the tropical world, with an average flying population of 4000 Malaysian butterflies of 120 different species, including the rare Indian Leafl (Kallima paralekta) and the endangered Yellow Bird wing (Troides helena). Probably the most famous of Malaysian butterflies is the Rajah Brooke's Bird wing of the Papilionidae family. First discovered in Borneo in 1855 by A. R. Wallace, it was named after the first British Rajah of Sarawak.
Malay Peninsular has over 1000 recorded butterfly species, among the highest of any country in the world in relation to her small land mass. David Goh, the founder of the Penang Butterfly Farm was inspired and encouraged by Mr. Clive Farrell, owner of the Stratford Butterfly Farm at Stratford-on-Avon (birth-place of William Shakespeare) in England, to start a tropical butterfly farm in Malaysia.The Penang Butterfly Farm is now a household name in Penang and a "must-see" for visitors since it opened in 1986. The farm located right at the end of the tourist hotel strip at Batu Ferringhi stands on a 0.8 hector site in Teluk Bahang, about 17km from George town. It has become one of the most popular stops on Penang's round island tour. The success of the Butterfly Farm as a tourist attraction has even inspired a series of similar commercial operations in Malacca, Cameron highlands and Singapore.
In spite of its general fame, the aspect of the Penang Butterfly Farm which means most to the people behind it has gained scant recognition within Malaysia. According to David Goh, "the locals only think of the Penang Butterfly Farm as a money making operation. In fact the farm is known and respected internationally as a breeding centre."

Breeding
Nature Heritage
Behind the miracle of the Butterfly Farm which is visible to visitors, is the hidden operation which consists of extensive breeding facilities.

Behind the visible aspect of the butterfly farm is the hidden operation which consists of extensive breeding facilities. Here, the butterflies are nurtured in a safe environment, from the time the eggs are laid on the caterpillar food plants or the so called 'host plants' till the time the young emerge as imago.Butterfly eggs take three to four days to hatch and then the little caterpillars consume their egg-shells before commencing their eating marathon. Each of them devours two entire pots of food plants on the average and grows up to 1000 times in size before they transform themselves into pupae. Inside their chrysalis, the pupae take two to three weeks to metamorphose into adults. As the butterflies have very short life spans, they urgently have to look for mating partners. These stages of the butterfly life cycle are closely monitored and studied at the farm's six breeding centers." A butterfly farm cannot afford to have a single day with too few butterflies flying about," says David. "The breeding stations enable us to constantly replenish our flying population. Sometimes an epidemic can wipe out our entire livestock of certain species at one of the stations, but we always have alternative breeding stations to rely on."

Collecting & Conservation
The overwhelming threat to butterfly species today comes from the destruction of their natural habitat. Therefore, the most important action that can be taken to conserve insect species is to persuade governments to preserve their natural habitat as forest reserves.

Behind the miracle of the Butterfly Farm which is visible to visitors, is the hidden operation which consists of extensive breeding facilities.The controversy that has surrounded butterfly collecting has also been reviewed at the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). Like stamp collectors who usually concentrate on stamps of certain issue, country or historical period, butterfly collectors traditionally focus on a certain family of butterflies.Among collectors, the most popular family of butterflies is the colourful Papilionidae, which includes the well-known groups of Swallowtails, Graphiums and Birdwings. The striking Swallowtails are so called because of their elongated hind wings.Though it was previously thought that butterfly collecting endangered butterfly populations, it was often difficult to impose a set of rules for those who collect for research and those who collect for trading. David Goh views that amateur collectors, who often buy or exchange mounted specimens for their private collections, have traditionally contributed greatly to butterfly research as well as raised the level of appreciation of butterflies among general public.A growing conviction among those involved with butterfly work is that collecting butterflies does not significantly threaten the butterfly population. According to comments given by Dr. Mark Collins at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, not even one butterfly specie has become extinct through collecting. Together with other major world experts on butterfly conservation, Dr. Collins believes that the overwhelming threat to butterfly species today comes from the destruction of their natural habitat. Therefore, the most important action that can be taken to conserve insect species is to persuade governments to preserve their natural habitats as forest reserves.Some tropical countries highlight certain problems that arise from a ban collecting.. These countries have a law which prohibits people from collecting insects in the wild. This has discouraged research on the great range of butterfly species found in the wide range of natural habitat stretching (for example like Indonesia) from Sumatra to Irian Jaya. The prohibition apparently does not completely stop the illegal butterflies trade but only discourage collecting by amateurs and researchers. While many species of jungle insects remain undiscovered, they are steadily becoming extinct due to high rate of deforestation in a country. As a result of the ban, there are no studies or records of many disappearing species in such countries.

The Future
In view of the tremendous popularity of live exhibition of tropical butterflies, most major zoos round the world have in recent years

(i.e. in the final decade of 20th century) incorporated into their establishments such compact live exhibition of not only butterflies but also jungle insects by constructing temperature-controlled tropical glass houses for visitors to walk through.Such recent world-wide activity has led to wide-spread interest in researching into the life-history and breeding of not only butterflies, but also many other invertebrates such as beetles, stick and leaf insects, mantises, spiders, scorpions, millipedes and even aquatic insect particularly fire-flies. So much so, enthusiasts in the west have started to organize annual international conferences on butterflies and separately on other invertebrates.Such rapid world-wide development has created a vacuum for such specialists to run and manage such live facilities. Penang Butterfly Farm is therefore an ideal centre to provide collaboration work in training more professional people in this field.

One Man's Vision
All these issues press deeply upon David Goh. When asked what butterflies mean to him, the founder of Penang Butterfly Farm declines to reply in a sentimental fashion. He prefers to point out that his love for butterflies can simply be seen in his life's work. "It is my vision to see the farm continue to play its role in the research and breeding of tropical butterflies."Part of David's vision is to educate the public especially children about butterflies. He is glad to see a gradual change in the attitudes of the locals. "They no longer zip in and out and complain it was not worth seeing. Perhaps influenced by the more purposeful viewing approach of foreigners, they now move around slowly, reading the signs and taking an interest in what they are looking at. It also gratifies me to see many of the same faces again, occasionally bringing their friends along." The Penang Butterfly Farm is a complete museum with both live and mounted sections, as well as a research centre. It would be safe to say no other private institution has come so far in preserving a part of the natural history of Malaysia.

Information Brought to you by Penang Butterfly Farm