Clark Butterfly Farms

We began Clark Farms quite humbly many years ago as a nursery to grow Florida native plants. This evolved into growing plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. We eventual narrowed it down to just butterfly nectar and host plants for butterfly gardens. After years of watching the butterflies flutter around our garden, my wife, C.J. began to experiment with raising butterflies as a hobby just to see if she could. Over time she realized that she had learned quite a lot about butterflies after the books she read told her less about raising butterflies than she already knew. Then we learned about this wonderful concept called the Live Butterfly Release! We began to research the business aspects of raising and selling butterflies commercially and decided, " We can do this!" and that is how it all got started.

Needless to say, it was a lot more work than either of us anticipated. Raising butterflies for fun was easy. Raising butterflies commercially is a completely different story, but it truly is a labor of love. It took almost a year just to build the infrastructure needed. We have two new, sterile butterfly labs to protect the little creatures from predators and disease. We just added a new greenhouse that allows us to raise the butterfly host and nectar plants in a controlled environment.  We converted our old greenhouse into a "Fly House" to feed and exercise the adults and most importantly, a place to breed the adults so we can collect the eggs to perpetuate the life cycle and ensure that we will have an ample supply of butterflies for you to release at your event.

We take pride in knowing that our industry is a "green industry" from front to back. Let me explain. We grow all our own plants that feed and host the different species of butterflies we raise. We cannot use toxic pesticides or chemicals of any kind in the process of growing the plants because it would kill the butterflies that we are trying to raise. That would be bad! There are no harmful by-products created as a result of raising butterflies. The butterflies that don't get sold are used to make jewelry and other decorative products after they have done their part to make lots of little caterpillars and eventually come to their natural end. The rest get recycled in the compost pile. The ultimate pay off is when the butterflies are released in to the environment by you. You see, the habitats that butterflies migrate to in the Winter are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Without this endangered habitat, the butterfly populations are rapidly decreasing. Without butterflies, many ecosystems lose a vital component to the food chain. The butterflies help pollinate many of the indigenous plant species which propagate the plant population. When there are no more butterflies, plant populations shrink and the local biomass begins a slow and steady decline. There are those that think the act of releasing farm raised butterflies into the environment is a bad thing. We say, "How can that be?" The USDA regulates the sale and transportation of butterflies across state lines. We, the breeders and retailers, are not allowed to ship butterflies into a state where they are not found to be an indigenous species. This prevents releasing a non native or invasive species into your local ecosystem. We believe that in a World that is faced with the serious issues of over population, resource depletion and global warming, butterfly breeders are one of the heroes of environmentalism by helping mankind reduce it's carbon footprint on this earth and making our planet a more beautiful place.

So--Save the planet!-- Buy butterflies for a live release! Let Clark Butterfly Farms help you add an element of beauty to your special event with a live butterfly release. Your live butterfly release will help protect and beautify your local environment. Call or email us. We would love to hear from you. Our goal is to make your butterfly experience both enlightening and exciting.

- John Clark