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These women are raising endangered butterfly larvae from prison: ‘They reconnect with their own brilliance’
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian
Posted: June 5th, 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/04/taylor-b...
Trista Egli was standing in a greenhouse, tearing up strips of plantain and preparing to feed them to butterfly larvae. Egli is one of seven women incarcerated at the Mission Creek correctional facility, located a two-hour drive from Seattle, who are part of a year-long program that takes captured butterflies, harvests their eggs, and oversees the growth of the larvae before they are released into the wild where they will turn into adults. Last year, scientists working with the team released more than 10,000 larvae. Many of the women speak of their pride working on a project that feels like it is making a positive contribution to the world. Lynn Cheroff, 42, said she had been thrilled to talk about it with her two young children when they come to visit. Another woman, Jennifer Teitzel, appreciates the sense of order and discipline the program demands. Every detail about the eggs and larvae has to be collated and recorded. It is the women’s responsibility, and nobody else’s, seven days a week. The program run by Washington state department of corrections (DOC), is part of an effort to prepare the women for life once their sentences are over and to smooth the path to work or college. Kelli Bush, the co-director of Sustainability in Prisons Project, [says] the program also gives them confidence. “They reconnect with their own brilliance, they reconnect with their own intelligence,” she says. “It’s routine to hear people say ‘I didn’t think I was smart and I’m realising I’m doing science’.
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