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Incarcerated Women Helping Raise Butterflies
The Sustainability in Prisons Project connects incarcerated people with conservation
This spring, Bring Birds Back host Tenijah Hamilton traveled to Washington state to meet up with incarcerated women who are part of the Sustainability in Prisons Project. They’re helping raise the caterpillars of endangered butterflies to release in the wild. A double episode of Bring Birds Back takes a deep dive into the positive impact of nature and conservation on incarcerated individuals.
BirdNote®
Incarcerated Women Helping Raise Butterflies
This is BirdNote. I’m Tenijah Hamilton.
This spring, I traveled to Washington state to see something really special. I met with incarcerated women who are part of the Sustainability in Prisons Project. They’re helping raise the caterpillars of endangered butterflies to release in the wild. Here’s Radeline:
Radeline: These caterpillars — these larvae are just coming out of diapause, which is kinda like hibernation, so they're just waking up and getting their food. They're being split up into new, smaller groups, and so I'm just creating the new labels for their new little homes.
One woman, Summer, told me that participating in this project helps her feel like she’s building toward something.
Summer: I feel like it's more than just like, oh, we're out here just doing the butterflies. We have a passion for something greater than, you know. And my grandma was 101 when she passed away and I remember catching tiger swallowtail butterflies with her. And, um, I lost my mom this trip to prison. So I just, I really feel like my mom's smiling on me doing something really cool here. You know, we're getting ecology degrees working towards something when we leave here that we can — there's a wide variety of things we can do with what we're starting here. I know there's a lot more going on these days for us to let us know that our past doesn't define us and the work that we do here is important.
Hear more from the women, men and staff of the Sustainability in Prisons Project on the Bring Birds Back Podcast. In a double episode, we’ll take a deep dive into the positive impact of nature and conservation on incarcerated individuals – during and after prison. Listen in your favorite podcast app or at BirdNote dot org.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote June 2023
Narrator: Tenijah Hamilton
ID# PodBBB-26-2023-06-21 PodBBB-26
