Come Join With NABA in Creating NABA Butterfly Park

The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) is creating the premier butterfly gardens in the world, tentatively to be called NABA Butterfly Park, to be located on approximately 100 acres of land fronting the Rio Grande River in Mission, Texas. But, we need your help to make it a reality!

This land, just east of Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, is being donated to NABA by Bentsen-Palms, LLP. The land donation is contingent upon NABA raising $500,000 to begin actualizing the project.

Your donation to NABA will be an important contribution to making our world just a little bit better. Opportunities exist for naming structures and gardens at the Park.

The Park will be designed to ensure its attractiveness to the general public as well as to butterfliers and birders. NABA Butterfly Park will be the first major outdoor butterfly garden and habitat.

NABA Butterfly Park will quickly becomes an important destination for

• Butterfliers
• Ecotourists
• Family groups searching for interesting and educational outings
• Residents of the Lower Rio Grande Valley

NABA Butterfly Park will include the following attractions and benefits:

• Lower Rio Grande Valley woodland is one of the most endangered ecosystems in the United States. NABA Butterfly Park will be an important link in the wildlife corridor along the Rio Grande River that is being created by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
• The Lower Rio Grande Valley contains the most diverse butterfly fauna in the United States.
• The re-creation of native Lower Rio Grande Valley woodland coupled with native flower gardens will ensure that NABA Butterfly Park is far and away the best location in the Lower Rio Grande Valley to find butterflies.
• Spectacular flower gardens will encourage vast concentrations of butterflies, providing explosive color and movement throughout the year.
• The presence of thriving populations of exotic and beautiful butterflies that are rarely seen in the United States will make NABA Butterfly Park the most desired destination for butterfliers.
• An enchanting riverwalk along the Rio Grande River, meandering through the open flower gardens and then along the river edge of the woodlands, will prove to be irresistible to visitors.
• The woodlands and flower gardens will also be highly attractive to birds, and we will encourage their presence by the liberal use of feeders. We anticipate that NABA Butterfly Park will become a must-visit location for birders traveling to the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
• An open air flight cage will ensure that visitors are able to interact closely with butterflies.
• The major North American education center about butterflies will contain displays and interactive exhibits that will be designed to provide exciting and educational experiences for both the general public and more advanced butterfliers. A special area of concentration will be children's education.
• As an important tourist attraction, NABA Butterfly Park will provide important economic benefits to the people of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, while providing a wholesome and healthful educational and recreational resource.

• Siting and design of a visitor center. In addition to providing space for displays and interactive exhibits, this building will also house a sales office and offices for the NABA Butterfly Park staff. It will be designed so that expansion is easily achieved. The initial size of the facility will be approximately 4500 square feet.
• The re-creation of Lower Rio Grande Valley woodland, especially planted on approximately 50 acres and managed to provide habitat for scores of butterfly species. Special plantings throughout the woodlands will encourage the creation of populations of rare butterflies. As one of many possible examples, crackers are large, interesting, tropical butterflies that occasionally populate the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Since their caterpillars feed only on plants in the genus Dalechampia, we will plant native Dalechampias to encourage the formation of resident populations. Interpretive signs will we placed along trails through the woodlands and benches will be positioned by woodland openings, especially productive sites for butterflies.
• The creation of open butterfly gardens, using native plants chosen for their attractiveness to adult butterflies, their usefulness as foodplants for caterpillars, and for their aesthetic desirability to people. Beautifully designed plant groupings will lead visitors through the gardens. Again, a key feature will be the presence of plants designed to establish populations of butterflies. For example, we will plant Cassias, beautiful ornamental plants with attractive yellow flowers. Cassias also are the caterpillar foodplants for a number of sulphurs, very large, eye-catching butterflies that are colored in vivid oranges and yellows. We will also use more specialized plants for particular butterflies, such as Bernardia myricaefolia, in the hope of establishing a population of Lacey's Scrub-Hairstreak.
• The siting of paths and trailways through the garden. A special attraction of the Park will be a riverwalk along the Rio Grande River. The riverwalk will wend its way through beautiful flower gardens filled with clouds of butterflies along the bank of the river. Inviting benches will be positioned at strategic points along the riverwalk. Interpretive signs, in English and Spanish, will allow people to identify the butterflies and plants they see, as well as explain many facets of butterfly natural history. Visitors will be able to see across the river and imagine the incoming flights of exotic butterflies and birds moving northward from Mexico.
• The creation of a small wetland area, involving a pond, and perhaps a small stream, to create habitat for some wetland-loving plants and butterflies.
• The construction of irrigation facilities, to ensure the health of the gardens during the worst periods of drought.

We strongly believe that increasing the publicís awareness and enjoyment of butterflies, and fostering the growth of butterflying, will directly result in increased resources becoming available for the conservation of important natural communities. Butterflying creates important new constituencies that have a stake in conservation.

Please help us make NABA Butterfly Park a reality. Please send you tax-deductible donation to:    NABA, 4 Delaware Rd., Morristown, NJ 07960.