The Butterfly Estates closed, but now you can see its butterflies at The Shell Factory
After being evicted in July, the butterflies at The Butterfly Estates have a new home in Southwest Florida: The Shell Factory Nature Park in North Fort Myers.
The Florida Native Butterfly Society and its more than 400 butterflies used to live at The Butterfly Estates tourist attraction in downtown Fort Myers. Then they were forced out in July after new owners bought the property.
But the nonprofit society and its butterflies weren’t homeless for long. They moved to The Shell Factory on Aug. 15 and started setting up a new outdoor butterfly garden there.
Right now, those butterflies can sometimes be seen hanging around the slim, approximately 150-feet-long garden near the Day of the Dinosaur and Petting Farm areas. But society members and Shell Factory managers plan to plant more butterfly-attracting "host plants" all over the nature park.
“That’s the goal,” says society member Elizabeth Wilkerson, now one of two part-time “butterfly ambassadors” on The Shell Factory payroll. “To have butterflies everywhere.”
Shell Factory garden wants the butterflies to stick around
These aren’t the exact same butterflies that lived at The Butterfly Estates, though. All those were either released or moved to new homes elsewhere in Southwest Florida.
Instead, these new butterflies have been raised at the homes of society members, says former Butterfly Estates butterfly house curator Sherri Williams. They’re periodically brought to the Shell Factory and released into the new butterfly garden.
Unlike The Butterfly Estates, these butterflies aren’t contained in a glass-walled building. So sometimes they stay, sometimes they don’t.
“I personally like the idea that we’re letting the butterflies fly free out in nature, rather than enclosing them in a big glass house,” says Williams, who is also a paid “butterfly ambassador” at the nature park. “The only problem I have with it is when people go by, they may or may not see butterflies.”
Butterfly Estates closes, but the society mission continues
The Butterfly Estates had been a downtown fixture since it opened in 2009 with the butterfly house ― also known as The Florida Native Butterfly Society Conservatory ― and a renovated trio of early 20th century houses. The tourist attraction worked hand-in-hand with the Florida Native Butterfly Society, a nonprofit with more than 4,000 members.
The Butterfly Estates property doesn't have butterflies anymore, but the property still includes DAAS CO-OP Art Gallery & Gifts and the restaurant/coffee shop bullig. Thrifty Garden garden center closed Aug. 27.
The new owners haven’t announced plans for what will be done with the former butterfly house.
Now the Florida Native Butterfly Society’s mission is continuing at members’ homes and The Shell Factory Nature Park. That mission includes a butterfly breeding program to collect butterfly eggs, nurture the resulting caterpillars and then ― once those cocoon and emerge as butterflies ― release the butterflies into the wild. The idea is to help replenish Florida’s butterfly population.
The new butterfly garden replaces the previous one at the Shell Factory Nature Park. It was wiped out by Hurricane Ian.
“We desperately needed it,” says nature park director Karen Schneider. “Our old one got totally destroyed from the hurricane. … It was just something missing that guests were really enjoying and they want to see again.”
More plans for Shell Factory Nature Park
The Shell Factory also plans to open a butterfly education center on the property in the small, screened-in building formerly occupied by the Florida Monarch Research and Educational Project. The education center could possibly open by November, Schneider says.
Williams wants to raise and display butterflies there in the early stages of their life cycle ― caterpillars and chrysalises ― just like they used to do at The Butterfly Estates. She also hopes to put in tables, chairs, kids activities and a TV showing video about the life cycle of butterflies.
“We still have our mission to educate,” Williams says.
The society’s members also have a lot more work to do on the garden, including planting more butterfly-friendly host plants such as Dutchman’s pipe, coontie, corkystem passion vines and milkweed.
“We have been weeding and planting,” Williams says. “We have planted milkweed. We have planted all of the host plants.”
Butterflies aren’t always visible at the new butterfly garden, she admits. They've released queens, malachites, monarchs, zebra longwings, atalas, white peacocks and other butterfly species, but none of those butterflies made an appearance during a recent visit to the garden.
That will likely change as they continue releasing butterflies and setting up shelter, nectar and host plants, Wilkerson says. “You just give them what they want and hope they stay.”
To learn more about the The Florida Native Butterfly Society, visit facebook.com/FloridaNativeButterflySociety.
If you go
What: New butterfly garden at The Shell Factory
Where: The Shell Factory Nature Park, 16554 N. Cleveland Ave., North Fort Myers
When: Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily (weather permitting)
Admission: The butterfly garden is free with park admission of $14 ($9 for veterans and children ages 4-12, $10 for seniors, free for children 3 and younger with a paid adult)
Info: 995-2141 or shellfactorynaturepark.com
— Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him at crunnells@gannett.com. Follow or message him on social media: Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Butterfly Estates butterflies land at Shell Factory in N. Fort Myers
