One Man Can Make A Difference,

in this case reintroduce a butterfly that had nearly disappeared,

from around San Francisco, Tim Wong, a young aquatic biologist at the California Academy of Sciences, spends his free time raising butterflies, a hobby he fell in love with as a young boy. “I first was inspired to raise butterflies when I was in elementary school, We raised painted lady butterflies in the classroom, and I was amazed at the complete metamorphosis from caterpillar to adult.”

 

 but breeding and raising the caterpillars of the pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor) was not going to be easy, the butterfly was becoming increasingly rare in the San Francisco area, researching the species, he found that while in caterpillar form, it feeds only on a single plant the California pipevine which, he realised, had become equally rare around San Francisco, so finding some cuttings he built a home for the plants and later the caterpillars themselves,

 after studying the butterflies behaviour, they started to breed,

 soon he was able to reintroduce the species, when he first kickstarted his backyard butterfly conservation efforts, Tim Wong would only take a few hundred of them to the San Francisco Botanical Garden’s “California Native” exhibit, but as his population of butterflies grew, so did the shipments, and last year he was able to introduce thousands of them to the gardens,

"each year since 2012, we’ve seen more butterflies surviving in the garden, flying around, laying eggs, successfully pupating, and emerge the following year,” Wong says. “That’s a good sign that our efforts are working!” for more information on this fascinating story have a look here on VOX, it just goes to show, one man can really make a difference.