Feb. 25, 2007 — There's something blooming a few steps from the West Indian Co. dock — a lush tropical garden filled with hundreds of butterflies, sometimes called "the flowers of the sky."
The island's first butterfly farm will provide a firsthand look at the short but spectacular life of a butterfly. Tony Cox is busily preparing the lush garden, which soon will house hundreds of exotic butterflies flying freely, dozens of the most spectacular species from all over the world. His wife, Lori, is visiting another of their farms in the Cayman Islands. They also have farms in St. Martin and Aruba.
Cox likely knows more about butterflies than anyone outside the academic scientific community, and certainly more than anyone the average person is likely to run across. And he is anxious to share his knowledge.
He began studying the creatures in 1994 when the Coxes moved from Canada to St. Martin in search of a new way of life. He says he has always had a leaning toward biology since his early years in Cuba, when his grandfather instilled in him an early love for birds, bees and butterflies.
Cox went to school in Canada, where he met his wife, Lori. They both followed careers in social work with some success, he says, "But it takes its toll on you."
So they headed south.
"My roots are in the Caribbean, and I wanted to find a way to make a living here," Cox says. They discovered the farm La Ferme Des Papillons because of its location on the French-Dutch island, and they went to work. They worked on St. Martin through Hurricane Luis, which devastated the island and the farm in 1995.
Four years later, they decided to open a farm of their own. They decided on Aruba, a more southern locale out of the hurricane zone. After that, they opened another in the Cayman Islands in 2003.
"We have a wonderful staff in Aruba, and in the Cayman Islands," Cox says. "They never leave us."
Someone else who never leaves is Oscar Peterson, an eight-year-old black retriever. Cox named the dog after the famed jazz pianist, who was his neighbor in Canada. Oscar never leaves our side except to chase a possibly imaginary bee now and then.
Cox has created a truly magic space in the lushly planted 7,200-square-foot enclosure, closed in by a 15-foot-tall roof.
There are 170,000 species of butterflies and moths. "We breed the Atlas, the biggest and heaviest moth," Cox says. "It's filled with orange panels with transparent little blue streaks that look like the heads of snakes. It will live seven to 10 days."
As we talk, Jocelyn Bitterman is earning her wings, so to speak, by weeding the garden. She will serve as tour guide when the farm opens in what Cox says should be less than a month. Bitterman has much more fun in store for her.
She will take folks around the farm in a 25-minute tour, which will start off with a look at the lab, situated at the back of the garden. The lab is a small hexagonal building painted in the same Caribbean pastel yellow and blue as the main building and gift shop.
Here the newly arrived pupae will live until they become full-fledged flying insects. There are four stages to a butterfly's life, Cox says. The creatures will be shipped to the farm in pupae form, as that is most protective of them. They are shipped from what's called the tropical belt from every continent.
The lab will contain specimens from each stage in a butterfly's life — first an egg, then, after about five to 10 days, the eggs hatch and a tiny caterpillar (larvae) emerges. After the caterpillar starts to eat, it will shed its skin four to six times as it grows and transforms itself into a chrysalis/pupae.
Then comes the magic part: Inside the pupal case, the caterpillar's body breaks down into a kind of soup that nurtures the adult structure of the butterfly, a process that can take from 10 to 15 days, after which — voila! — emerges the butterfly. It's officially called the metamorphosis, but forget Kafka. There is nothing grim about the birth of a butterfly.
Then, Cox says, comes the fun part — the creation of new butterflies: "The male butterfly puts on a mating dance to attract a bride. He is, essentially, a reproducing machine. He will impregnate a female, sometimes taking up to 48 hours without stopping. He has a short but happy life."
Butterflies, Cox says, are vulnerable to "everything." "They have no natural ability to fight anything off: no teeth, no claws, so they have to protect themselves." For that reason, they are very selective in laying their eggs. He shows tendrils from a young plant climbing a trellis.
"They might lay an egg here, on one side, and others on the underside of a leaf." The familiar white butterfly found on St. Thomas, he says, drops her eggs "like a crop duster."
Butterflies have an advanced sense of smell. "If you smell good, they will probably land on you," Cox says. "They all have a host plant. They instinctively will seek these out; they can smell them from six or seven miles away." Some butterflies feed on nectar, while others live on rotting plant life, Cox says, and they get their energy high from the fermented fruit. "It's like if you had a gallon of ice cream for breakfast, and followed with 24 beers," he says with a laugh.
The garden is filled with odd pieces of things Cox says Lori has found here and there, creating sculptures. "She is a good hurricane scavenger," he says. A gate from an old wrought-iron fences stands next to a pond which will be filled with Koi, the Japanese fish. There is another pond at the other end of the enclosure with a little waterfall. Another find of Lori's, an antique horseshoe covered with barnacles, holds a dominant position there.
"Good omen," Cox says.
Part of the enclosure will be rain forest, with palms and ficus trees planted to form a natural canopy. Another part will receive direct sunlight, depending on what's planted. The area abounds in flora — hibiscus, lantana, ixora, japropha — and the small pools are filled with water hyacinths.
Cox says they work closely with the cruise-ship industry. "Caribbean locations have water sports available," he says, "but they need land-based attractions, other than shopping."
He negotiated with the West Indian Co. (WICO) for the space. "After Carifest fell through, they needed something for this property," he says. WICO finally abandoned plans for the cultural theme park in 2006 after years on the drawing board.
The Butterfly Farm still needs a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to import exotic animals, which should come shortly, Cox says. The interior of the gift shop — which will feature butterfly jewelry and books and butterflies on acrylic panels, T-shirts and children's items — is almost completed. Admission, including a tour, will be $15 for adults, $8 for children, free for children under three and half price for locals.
Cox says they want school groups to tour the farm, and will offer special rates. The Butterfly Farm will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. For further information, call 715-3366.
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