Founder of the North American Butterfly Association to Appear at 18th Annual Texas Butterfly Festival
(Mission, TX) — Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg, geneticist, conservationist, and founder of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA), will lead a tour of the grounds and gardens at the National Butterfly Center, on Tuesday, November 5, to close out the five-day festival.
The National Butterfly Center is located in Mission, Texas, the butterfly capitol of the country. This pilot project of NABA was conceived in 1995, when Dr. Glassberg first imagined creating a place dedicated to public education and conservation of wild butterflies. While leading a butterflying tour in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, he stumbled upon the beautiful, old, abandoned Oblate Monastery, and thought: This would make a fantastic butterfly center!
“Upon leaving the monastery, the tour group and I went in search of the Greater Mission Chamber of Commerce,” explains Glassberg. “There we encountered Viola Espinosa, and shared the idea with her. Instead of laughing at us, she embraced the concept.
“When Viola became CEO of the Chamber, she worked on securing the World Birding Center Headquarters at Bentsen-RGV State Park,” continues Glassberg. “It was during this time that she mentioned creating a butterfly center to Scott Calhoun, a partner in Bentsen-Palm LLP. He thought the idea was interesting enough for me to fly down the very next day, and the rest, as they say, is history!”
Dr. Glassberg’s fascination with butterflies began at the age of five. Growing up on the south shore of Long Island, New York, he and a dozen other boys collected butterflies and baseball cards, and played stickball in the street. One of his childhood friends, Bob Robbins, is now curator of Lepidoptera at the U.S. national museum, Smithsonian Institution; while another, Ken Berlin, is an environmental lawyer, avid birder and director of RARE, a global organization which recently merged with the Nature Conservancy.
“It wasn’t until I went to college that I learned butterfly and bird activities were not typical of most childhoods,” confesses Glassberg, who received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Rice University. Although his career took him from coast to coast, first to Stanford University School of Medicine, then to Rockefeller University in New York City, Glassberg continued to study butterflies.
From 1984 to 1989, his hobby really blossomed into his life’s work. Better binoculars, which allowed one to focus on objects up close, and advances in photography—especially digital photography—supported the study and identification of butterflies in their natural setting. These two timely developments also inspired Glassberg to write Butterflies through Binoculars: A Field Guide to Butterflies in the Boston-NewYork-Washington Region, published in 1993. The first true field guide to U.S. butterflies, this ground-breaking compilation provided photos of live butterfly species in the wild, with identifying characteristics. The field guide showed butterflies side-by-side for comparison, at the same scale and orientation, so similar species could be distinguished in the field. Over the next eight years, the book became a series that expanded to include Butterflies through Binoculars: The East and Butterflies through Binoculars: The West. Glassberg’s latest tome is the Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America, an encyclopedia of butterflies found on the continent, including strays, with hundreds of new distinguishing field marks and 3500 full-color photographs.
At the 18th Annual Texas Butterfly Festival, registrants have to opportunity to tour the National Butterfly Center with Dr. Glassberg’s guidance and see the grounds, gardens and remarkable variety of butterfly species found there through his eyes.
“Although I grew up here, I was completely unaware of how special the Rio Grande Valley is, not only in Texas, but in the country,” states Marianna Trevino Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center. “For example, I didn’t know there are approximately 150 species of North American butterflies that may only be found in this four-county region. The truth is, we live in a truly exceptional place. Dr. Glassberg’s enthusiasm for it is contagious, and the Texas Butterfly Festival is designed to showcase it. Walking with him and learning from him, one cannot help but appreciate this place we take for granted; so I encourage everyone to come out for this experience. It’s a great way to grow your understanding and gain an education—one we hope will fuel environmental conservation efforts to preserve our quality of life and protect our natural treasures.”
The National Butterfly Center is honored to organize and host the 18th Annual Texas Butterfly Festival in Mission, Texas, to advance our mission of education and conservation, aimed at increasing wild butterfly populations. Online registration for the festival will close Friday, October 18. To view the full schedule of events and activities, visit www.texasbutterflyfestival.com. For questions or assistance after online registration closes, please call 956.583.5400.
The National Butterfly Center is committed to ‘Growing Connections’ between people, plants, and the winged wonders that pollinate and propagate all that grows around us. We do this through educational and environmental initiatives that cultivate meaningful understanding of the processes that create sustainable ecosystems. The Center is open to the public, for visitors and members, seven days/week.
To learn more about the National Butterfly Center, and how you can join us, visit www.nationalbutterflycenter.org. Your annual membership or charitable gift impacts the beauty of our community and helps preserve the biologically diverse, natural treasures of deep South Texas.
Media