CYNDIE CLAYPOOL de NEVE

Staff Writer

The clear blue sky was suddenly clouded with 100 flapping orange and black wings.

In honor of their 50th wedding anniversary, Liz and Tom Respess of San Diego released 50 monarch butterflies, all raised in Fallbrook.

Standing in the olive garden at First United Methodist Church in Mission

Valley, each couple or individual was given a triangle-shaped box and asked to open it at the same moment. When they did, 50 butterflies exploded into the air, lingering on bushes and flowers at the base of the olive trees.

"It was marvelous," said Tom Respess, choking up at the memory of the September event. "The butterflies were beautiful. They were a good representation of the beauty we've had together for 50 years."

His wife, Liz, said they chose to release butterflies because balloons can damage the atmosphere and throwing rice and confetti creates a mess and is bad for the wildlife.

"Both of us are very sensitive to the environment," she said. "We both love butterflies and encourage them in our back yard, so it was sort of natural for us."

Getting up close and personal with butterflies can foster concern for the environment, agree Nora Donston, owner of A Butterfly Affaire in Fallbrook, and David Marriott, founder and director of the Monarch Program in Encinitas.

"The love and appreciation for butterflies will initiate interest in butterfly gardening (growing plants specifically to attract butterflies), encourage the decreased use of insecticides by property owners and help in efforts to preserve butterfly habitats," stated Donston, who breeds native monarch butterflies for release at weddings, anniversaries, memorials and other special outdoor occasions.

In Donston's front yard sits a flight house, a screened tent with a heavy door that automatically closes when someone enters or leaves.

In early April, the butterflies had just begun to reproduce. Donston's eyes beamed as she showed off the various stages of butterflies: the tiny dots of the eggs hiding on the milkweed plants; the spiky caterpillars sitting on slightly eaten milkweed leaves; the stunningly uniformed light-green chrysalides with black and gold trim; and the adult butterflies, which she cooed at as if they were kittens.

For Donston, who wore a silver butterfly necklace and green skirt accented with butterflies, her business is a way to share her love for the winged beauties.

"We breed them and then release them," said Donston. "Our whole business is breeding and releasing into the wild."

BUTTERFLIES, BUTTERFLIES

Images of butterflies are everywhere, said Marriott, whose nonprofit organization is dedicated to research and education about butterflies.

"The past few years, everyone has gone butterfly crazy. There are butterfly socks, butterfly underwear, butterfly hair clips."

And that's a good thing. "I think people are recognizing butterflies more these days because they're an easy vehicle to better understand our environment," he said.

Each year, about 7,000 students tour the Monarch Program.

"We're teaching the children the relationship between plants and animals, using the monarch as the model, so children will pay more attention to the environment," he said.

"Butterflies represent a healthy environment. I think this is what people are starting to realize," explained Marriott. "If we see few butterflies in areas where there used to be a lot, that's an example of possible environmental crisis."

Despite the popularity of the weekday field trips by the students to Encinitas, locals are often surprised to stumble across the Monarch Program.

On Saturdays, when the 9-year-old center is open to the public, only about 40 visitors have been showing up. Though it has been featured on CNN and the Discovery Channel, and members in every one of the 50 states receive monthly and quarterly newsletters from the Monarch Program, said Marriott, "almost every time people come by they say, 'I've never heard about you. You're the most well-kept secret in Encinitas.' "

ENCINITAS NATIVES

Each year, Marriott breeds nearly 7,000 butterflies. Many go to supplying butterfly houses, such as the Butterfly Pavilion in the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Watching a butterfliy start from a tiny egg, grow into a caterpillar, wrap itself into a chrysalis and then transform into a beautiful butterfly is fascinating. And each week from April through October, hundreds of children file into the Monarch Program to see the amazing life cycles of these favored insects.

On the quarter-acre of donated property in Encinitas, Marriott has three distinct areas. One is a museum and classroom, where the eggs, caterpillars and chrysalides are kept. In the butterfly house, guests can interact with up to 15 different species of butterflies native to Southern California. Each variety of butterfly requires a specific plant. For instance, the monarchs lay eggs only on milkweed, and the forthcoming caterpillars munch on the milkweed leaves. In order to sustain the thousands of butterflies, Marriott has a greenhouse at the Monarch Program and one at his home in La Mesa, where he grows more than 5,000 plants a year.

"These caterpillars eat a lot," he said.

Since it's still early in the season, the butterflies have just begun to emerge. Marriott has hundreds of chrysalides, about 1,000 caterpillars and roughly 40 adult butterflies.

"Within a few weeks, we'll have maybe more than 100," he said. But the children who visit the Monarch Program don't seem to care about the number of adult butterflies.

"These children are happy seeing a butterfly sitting on their finger," said Marriott, dubbed the Butterfly Man by some of the students. "They kind of develop relationships with them. They name them. You can't go out in the wild and have a butterfly sit on your finger. This gets them up close and personal with the butterflies."

ONE OF THE NATURAL WONDERS

Besides offering an interactive exhibit, Marriott also tags monarchs to

track their migration.

"Their migration behavior is one of the natural wonders of the world," said Marriott, who caught his young son's excitement about butterflies in the '80s and subsequently taught a class at UC San Diego on monarch migration in 1988. From there, he said, "there was such a great interest from the public that I founded the Monarch Program."

Monarchs are unique because those born in September will migrate for the winter. Adult monarch butterflies usually live just four to six weeks, but the last generation of the year can live between six and nine months.

"Monarchs west of the Rockies spend winter along the coast of California," said Marriott.

Between Ensenada and San Francisco, there are more than 400 sites, with most of them wintering in Santa Barbara. San Diego County has about 20 sites. The largest is on Camp Pendleton. UCSD is home to a few wintering sites. The foliage around the theater can attract more than 10,000 monarchs during cool autumns.

Monarchs from east of the Rockies, however, usually winter in the small Mexican town of Angangueo. What fascinates Marriott, he said, is that monarchs don't fly as a group, like birds.

"They fly individually. Those born in September, on their own fly down to a pinpoint on a map, to the same forest their great-great-grandparents visited last year."

Four weeks ago, Marriott returned from Angangueo, where the fir trees are covered with monarchs. About 40 million butterflies fill about 10 acres, he said.

Yearly, Marriott takes two to three tours to Mexico in late February/early March to see the amazing infestation of wintering monarchs. A dozen guests accompany him and two monarch experts on each trip, he said. This year the cost was $895 per person for six days/five nights, including a double-occupancy room, meals and tours.

Transportation to Mexico City is extra.

"People come from all over the nation and Canada," he said. "It's a very

popular tour."

BUTTERFLIES ARE IN DEMAND

Donston also has experienced just how popular butterflies are. She started A Butterfly Affaire last year and sold monarchs to be released at more than 65 weddings, memorials, anniversaries and other special outdoor events.

She is one of 106 members of the International Butterfly Breeders Association, a nonprofit organization that offers support to breeders and keeps the members accountable to "promoting high standards of ethics, competence and professionalism," stated Donston. The butterfly release industry is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Protection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine, and Scientific Services.

Some controversy has surrounded the business of breeding butterflies for proift. Marriott said the main concerns are that butterflies not native to the area will be released where they can't survive and that some people just don't want to see nature commercialized.

For A Butterfly Affaire, Donston's monarchs are bred to be sold within California only, where monarchs are native.

"The USDA allows us to release butterflies indigenous to the area," she explained. "There are six different species allowed to be released, but the monarch is the most popular. It's the largest and the most friendly."

For the Respesses, they were delighted with using the butterflies to honor their 50th wedding anniversary.

"We didn't want a big dinner or a big trip," said Liz Respess. "We wanted to share with a larger number of our friends. We thought this is the way we could do that."

The couple spent almost $500 to release the monarchs between services at

their church.

"It was a wonderful thing," she said. "Everyone loved it. People are still talking about it."

Even though their anniversary was in September, occasionally a monarch

can be spotted fluttering through the church garden, she said.

"There's something special about the butterfly," said her husband, Tom.

"They are so delicate and beautiful, yet so enduring. There's something really joyful about watching a butterfly flutter about."

Contact Cyndie Claypool de Neve at (760) 740-3511 or cyndie@nctimes.net.

4/22/01