Butterfly World
Walking into Butterfly World is quite magical; so many brightly coloured things immediately fluttering all around you. Iridescent flashes of blue and emerald cast a glamour and all I can think is "my god, try not to swallow any".
It seems a fine place. I remember not visiting with family back in the day because the prices were just too high; but entry now is only £5/adult. I thought, I can just try and get a few decent shots, and once I'm more familiar with the challeges the enviroment represents I can come back and refine what I'm doing...
It's a big place for little butterflies, with loads of vegetation and clearly has excellent "environmental controls". What's not to love?
I was a bit suprised to see the small exotic birds (don't they eat all the butterflies?) - it's quite a big space, but even so some what limited for birds, even if they do have a multicoloured smorgasbord litterally at their feet.
Then we found the 'animals setion', in an antichamber. A dingy collection of diminutative vivariums housing various reptiles, snakes an marmosets. I did take pictures, as I was there, but my heart lost its joy and I took fewer and fewer as we shuffled around the space. Arriving at the meerkat enclosure I could hardly even look anymore, let alone shoot pictures. Who keeps meerkats indoors? Why do they even have all these animals packed in here? There's no real conservation imperative (none of them being at all endangered).
There's no website for Butterfly World where you can read up on their ethical standards or conservation work; just a facebook page so you know when they're open. However wonderful the butterfly collection may be, I really don't feel comfortable supporting the enclosure of the animals so a return visit is unlikely. It's a real shame because, otherwise, I'd count it as a top attraction. I think Chris feels pretty much the same, leastways the plight of these animals was still very much in her mind the next day - it was a real blight on an otherwise amazing space.
So here's some of their butterflies - I've excluded any shots of the vivariums as I don't want to share and promote that kind of misery:
