Prison Greenhouse Becomes Unlikely Sanctuary for Endangered Butterfly

On an ordinary spring morning at a women’s prison in Washington state, something quietly extraordinary is happening. Behind greenhouse glass sits Margaret Taggart, tending to nearly invisible eggs clinging to plantain leaves—work that carries weight far beyond the prison fence.

Taggart and her colleagues are butterfly technicians, raising Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies back from the edge of extinction. The species has lost 97 percent of its native prairie-oak habitat, carved away by development, agriculture, and invasive species. Without large-scale habitat restoration and the work happening inside Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCV), this butterfly might already have vanished entirely. Instead, the program has helped raise and release 80,000 caterpillars into restored prairie habitats since its early years.

But this isn’t just a conservation story. It’s about what happens when people and endangered species save each other simultaneously. For Taggart, who began training as a butterfly technician in January 2025, the work offers something prison typically denies: a sense of real purpose.“I’ve always had a love for butterflies, for nature and plants,”she says.“But I didn’t even know butterflies are endangered. The education was eye-opening.”She monitors egg clusters daily, tracks growth rates, feeds larvae through multiple developmental stages, and witnesses something few people ever see—the full metamorphosis of a creature she’s nurtured from birth.“To be able to nurture something, to take care of a creature that emerges as this beautiful butterfly, that’s just so fulfilling,”Taggart reflects.“You watch them from the moment they’re born; it feels like you know them.”

The deeper mission runs through the entire Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP), which operates in every Washington state prison. Research shows that when incarcerated people have access to education, they’re 43 percent less likely to recidivate—and connection to nature measurably improves both mental and physical health. Participants earn college credits through partnerships with The Evergreen State College in fields like ecology and animal husbandry. Taggart has already completed coursework in ecology and is considering an associate degree after her release in eleven months. Before her three-year sentence for selling drugs, she worked in automotive service. Now, she envisions a future in environmental work.“The education portion of this program has really stirred me up to want to learn more and to pursue a degree, which is something I haven’t done before,”she says quietly.“It gave me a belief in myself that I can learn and grow.”

The program’s ripple effects extend beyond individual lives. Since launching in 2011 with painted lady butterflies as a trial, it expanded to Taylor’s checkerspot in 2012 and has become a national and international model—37 states and multiple countries now consult SPP on replicating its approach. Former participants like Carolina Landa, one of the first butterfly technicians at Mission Creek in 2011, have gone on to earn advanced degrees and pursue careers in public service; Landa now works as an analyst in the state legislature. For others, the impact is quieter but no less significant: competence, capability, and a sense that learning and contribution are possible even within confinement.

The work remains fragile. Recent years have forced operational adjustments—the closure of Mission Creek has led to transitions, with Taggart and colleagues now bused to former sites while new infrastructure develops at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) Pierce County. Conservation isn’t linear; success in one area creates pressure in another. Releasing large numbers of butterflies makes little sense without ecosystems ready to sustain them. Yet what endures is the underlying truth: The conditions that allow a butterfly to survive—care, stability, the right environment—are not entirely different from those that support human growth. For Taggart, that possibility is tangible and transformative.“It’s something I can be proud of,”she says.“I see another color in the rainbow.”