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(birds calling)
[Narrator] Long ago, Russian people believed
that when an old woman died, her soul became a butterfly,
which they named babochka.
German myths held that butterflies were in fact witches,
who could transform themselves in order to steal butter.
They were so named molkendieb, milk thief.
(soft music)
The Spanish word for butterfly, mariposa,
meant literally, Maria posing,
for the resemblance a resting butterfly bore
to the hands of the Virgin Mary in prayer.
Ancient Greeks knew the butterfly as psyche, the soul,
that kernel of defining truth that remains
when all else is stripped away.
[Woman] You said you're gonna build a beautiful wall
and Mexico is gonna pay for it.
But you never said how.
So when you say believe.
Okay, you ready?
Who's gonna pay for the wall?
[Crowd] Mexico
Who?
[Crowd] Mexico.
100%, 100%.
It's gonna be a beautiful wall because someday
they'll name it after me.
build that wall, build that wall, build that wall,
build that wall.
What is your comment?
I said the wall just got 10 feet higher, it's true,
it's true.
(light music)
(birds chirping)
People say things like, oh you're just a liberal
democrat, libtard snowflake.
That's why you don't want the wall.
You know, I've been a lifelong republican.
I'm Christian, I'm conservative.
(motor starting)
We received this Right of Entry request letter
from the government a few months ago
and it says, "The undersigned herein after called
"the owner, hereby grants to the United States
"of America, herein after called the government,
"a temporary right of entry upon owner's property.
"This right entry is irrevocable."
We know that this is the precursor to the
eminent domain proceedings for the seizure
of the National Butterfly Center land
to build the border wall.
The National Butterfly Center is a project
of the North American Butterfly Association.
We are a 100-acre nature center and botanical garden
dedicated to native plants that are beneficial
to butterflies.
This is balloon vine, and the little seed pods
that look like the balloon are where the caterpillars hatch.
There are more butterflies in the lower Rio Grande Valley
than anywhere in the United States.
We're at the crossroads of the richest biological
environment in North America.
For decades US Fish and Wildlife, the federal government
and various private entities like the North American
Butterfly Association have been working
to create a conservation corridor
because there's only about 5% of our
native habitat remaining.
Some of the species that depend on the wildlife corridor
include the ocelot, which is an endangered cat,
over 500 species of birds.
We have other animals that are protected
and threatened like the Texas indigo,
the Texas horn lizard and the Texas tortoise
that also depend on this land.
And soon, if the government has its way,
all of the wildlife that lives in that corridor
will be trapped behind this impenetrable barrier.
The clearing of land for Border Patrol's enforcement zone
will result in the elimination of over 6,000 acres
of this remnant of native habitat.
Building a wall here would destroy the
National Butterfly Center.
It would eliminate two-thirds of our property.
It would decimate the habitat that we've spent
15 years re vegetating.
And the wall will be built up to two miles inland
from the river.
That takes my breath away.
Most people don't understand that each butterfly species
is tied to one or two plant species.
They can only lay those eggs on those plants
for their caterpillars to complete the life cycle
and become butterflies.
So if those plants disappear, those butterflies disappear.
This is milkweed, one of the milkweed species.
Look, there's a caterpillar right there.
There's an egg right there, so a little future one.
(light piano music)
[Narrator] We all begin as a seed, an infinitesimal idea
of life contained in a luminous germ.
The egg is all.
In this pregnant package, the future's wings reside.
But predators and parasites and all other manner
of danger abounds.
A butterfly mother carefully placed this precious package
just so, but her life will soon end,
as is the way with butterflies.
If the egg survives and a caterpillar emerges,
she will begin life in the wide world on her own.
(singing in foreign language)
(violin music)
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
(violin music)
(birds chirping)
If a butterfly survives incubation, she may be
no bigger than a freckle when she climbs out of her egg.
At this point, she has everything she needs
to grow into a butterfly, everything but size.
So she eats and eats and eats.
And she tries to stay safe in a dangerous world.
Caterpillars do have limited defenses.
Some will run while others stand and fight.
They may grow spines or hair or coloring
that suggests they're either dangerous
or not very tasty.
Many caterpillars feed at night to avoid
keen bird eyes.
And most can build shelters out of leaves
for resting in safety through the daylight hours.
Even plants can be dangerous to caterpillars
whose voracious appetites can destroy them.
So plants have evolved protective spines, hairs
and hooks.
Butterflies adapted to the deterrents
of particular plants.
That plant or group of plants became the larval host,
the one place a hungry little caterpillar knows
food is safe and will give every nutrient she needs
to become a butterfly.
Without her unique host plant, life cannot be.
(light piano music)
This is beautiful.
So we've got one, two, three, four, five ayenia?
Yes, and then I did a whole other batch.
They just haven't sprouted yet.
But I have high hopes they're all gonna come out.
This is a federally listed endangered plant species
that's called Tamaulipan kidney petal
or ayenia limitaris is the scientific name.
It is only found in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Prior to 2002 when we began acquiring the land
for this project, it was a commercial onion field.
There were maybe 20, 30 species of native plants
on the property.
And now there are over 200.
We maybe had 50 or 60 species of butterflies.
Now we have one plant that we've documented
over 60 species of butterfly on at a time
and the total list for the property is at
about 240 butterfly species.
Because the land was subject to herbicide
and plowing, crop rotation, returning this land
to native habitat is arduous.
Make sure you give them instructions on the raking
because I don't want 'em to pull up the species
and all the other stuff.
(birds calling)
Close to $8 million has been invested here in our center.
The majority has come from donors around the world,
people contributing to the success of this place
because they love butterflies, because they
believe in conservation.
In some ways this whole project is now a memorial garden
for Dr. Jane Scott.
She and Dr. Jeff Glassberg started the National
Butterfly Center and she's passed on.
She actually died the day after we found the contractors
on the property.
(light music)
July 20th, 2017, I went over the levy to the south part
of the property between the levy and the river
and was surprised to find workmen there.
(motor running)
(car horn honks)
And they said, we're clearing this land.
And I said, my land?
And one of them said we better call our supervisor.
Most surprisingly the chief of the Rio Grande Valley sector
of Border Patrol said, "You can't limit our access
to the property. No one's gonna stop us."
and they would return in the future
with green uniform presence, which we understood
to mean armed federal agents to protect
the government contractors with lethal force
if necessary so that we could not interfere
with their mission.
And I can't imagine anyone who would not be upset
with that prospect of having their life's work undone.
In December of 2017, the North American Butterfly
Association filed suit against the federal government
to protect the National Butterfly Center.
[Narrator] Most caterpillars go through five stages
of larval life, each one known as an instar.
Each instar ends when the caterpillar forms
a new exoskeleton inside the old then expands air pressure
within her body to tear apart her old skin
so she can grow into the new larger form.
Then she eats and eats and tries to survive
until the next instar.
Out of 100 eggs laid by a female butterfly,
only a few will live past the larval stage,
and even fewer will live to see children of their own.
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
To be here at dawn is really beautiful.
The birds are singing.
(birds chirping)
(water splashing)
The morning sky is pink and blue.
The water sprinklers are going off.
It's something that I miss.
(engines running)
(Marianna singing) Here comes Border Patrol buzz by.
The government has the means to take private property
through eminent domain and obviously they intend
to do that for the border wall.
But part of our lawsuit deals with the fact
that they've already done this by virtue
of their actions here.
They have run amok across the property.
They drive through our gardens, over our sprinklers,
over our plants.
Once called in a full tactical response
to a group of girl scouts we had here
for a daytime activity.
After the lawsuit was filed, there was a lot
of publicity.
We started getting these messages and comments,
feedback like, "You stupid, ass bitch.
"Border security comes first.
"Dumb bitch, butterflies can fly over the border wall."
And a whole lot of really ugly, angry stuff.
People started calling the National Butterfly Center
asking for me by name, wanting to speak to me.
And staff began to screen those phone calls.
Yeah, some guy called, he just told Luciano
she needs to check her loyalties.
Our babies are being murdered by these Mexicans
and drug dealers and I hope some rapist finds her,
her kid and destroys her life the same way
they're destroying America.
He called repeatedly.
You know emotionally it's unsettling.
I hope some rapist gets hold of you.
Dumb bitch, butterflies can fly over the border wall.
Terrifying, I've really spent a lot of time
trying to separate the emotional from the
intellectual responses and sexual violence as way
to harm and oppress and silence women is
as old as human beings are.
I was never afraid to go out there at six, 6:30
in the morning even if it was still dark.
After all of that started, I tried not to come by myself.
If I had to, I drove right up to the gate,
locked it behind me, drove right up
to the front door of the building, got inside
and locked the door as soon as I could.
My whole relationship with this place changed.
[Narrator] When a caterpillar is fully grown,
she enters a phase of restlessness.
And she finds a branch or other solid perch
where she hangs waiting in discomfort
as a hard shell begins to form beneath her skin.
(light piano music)
When her chrysalis is complete, she will wriggle out
of her caterpillar skin leaving only her
barest self within.
Though the pupa appears inanimate, truly a solid jewel,
the creature inside may be aware of her vulnerability.
She may vibrate or click to warn off predators.
Who knows what anxiety lives inside as she waits
and waits, guileless in a hungry world.
Much of her butterfly form has already taken shape
under her caterpillar skin.
But in her pupa, it will rise to the surface
and take its proper place, wings, proboscis, antenna.
Colors will take on their final hues.
Eyes gain complexity.
Muscles for butterfly life will form.
There she waits in anticipation through sunshine and rain
as her body reassembles, migrating from one life
to another.
From a many-footed pedestrian, to a creature unbound
by gravity.
But when it's time, the pupa will fade to transparency
until she appears as liquid butterfly in a glass vial.
The vial breaks, life pours fourth.
(light piano music)
(cow mooing)
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
(man calling out in foreign language)
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
Her body at first is misshapen, her wings shriveled.
But as she hangs from her empty chrysalis, legs
will strengthen, antenna unfurl and wings expand.
When is all is ready, she takes flight
in radiant newborn color.
Life turns immediately to survival.
The butterfly searches for nectar plants
to keep her aloft and build nutrients in her body
that will sustain her eggs.
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
(singing in foreign language)
(light piano music)
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
(light piano music)
Life is a state of constant migration,
whether from plant to plant, wildlife refuge
to wildlife refuge, or nation to nation.
Some butterflies can find what they need
to live their life cycle in a relatively small region
as long as there are native meadows to sustain them.
But for others, like the monarch, survival requires
traveling thousands of miles every year
from Mexico to Canada and back again,
chasing the sun and their only host plant, milkweed,
which their very existence depends upon.
The winged migrant uses the Earth's dependable
magnetic field to navigate, but she faces threats
all along the way.
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
A butterfly uses every available strategy
for surviving the predatory world.
She may employ elaborate camouflage and hope
to go unnoticed, or complicated wing patterns
that confuse a predator's eye.
A butterfly can survive a bite taken from a wing
and generally even live to fly another day.
Some butterflies, like the monarch, queen
and viceroy, have adapted to live their caterpillar days
on toxic plants like milkweed.
Their bodies absorb the toxins and their coloring
advertises a warning.
A young bird may taste the monarch, but if he's
at all smart, he won't do it twice.
But none of these strategies will work all of the time
for every butterfly.
And even if they did, the threats to butterfly survival
have compounded beyond measure with the ever
expanding world of human endeavor.
Surviving as a fragile creature in a hard world
is never guaranteed.
In March of 2018, Congress appropriated the monies
for the border wall at the National Butterfly Center
and all of Hidalgo County.
It was like a punch in the gut.
I felt really hopeless for this whole situation.
We took a little bit of time to sort of regroup
and figure out if there was anything
that could be done to push that hopelessness aside.
So I took a trip to Washington, DC.
Please do not allow this horror to proceed,
to destroy thousands of acres of public
and private lands, condemn thousands of wildlife species,
poison our air and our water, close our nature centers
and create a baron no-man's land behind
an artificial barrier.
When I got there and started going to the
scheduled meetings, it was so much worse
than I imagined.
It didn't seem to matter whether we were talking
to democrats or republicans.
They all said the same thing.
There was no border wall in south Texas,
there was only levy fencing.
Every office we visited seem to have some version.
The omnibus didn't fund any border wall.
The levy fence is the border wall and we're caught
in this game of semantics.
And they're just trading things in this endless cycle
of bartering.
They don't know what life is like here.
They don't live in these communities.
This is my life, my community, my children,
my grandchildren.
[Narrator] Life is brief.
What precious time life offers, butterflies devote
to the making of more life.
(light piano music)
Her belly weighty with eggs, the butterfly scours
a landscape of scarcity searching for a patch
of verdant green in a pallid asphalt world.
She can smell for her host plant with antenna, head
and even wings, and can taste with her feet.
The plant must be healthy.
Her caterpillar may need to consume 50 plants
before it can pupate.
And the plant cannot have other eggs
or caterpillars on it, as they will eat
everything in their path including her eggs.
When she is satisfied, she will deposit her treasure.
She will almost certainly never see her children
or know how many survived.
But she has done the best she can preparing the way
in the a world they must now make their own.
We choose one day out of the month
to celebrate everybody's birthday, well the ones
that are born in July.
It starts with Ayleen, me and my nephew Iran
is on the eighth and then Javier, my brother-in-law
is on the 11th.
So's Melinda.
Oh, yeah, and my sister-in-law also on the 11th.
I don't know where she is here.
Kathy is 20, (mumbles) is the 17th.
So we've got 13 people in the family
that have their birthdays in July.
[Group] ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday (mumbles names and laughs). ♪
(Zelema speaking foreign language)
[Marianna] Out here on the Rio Grande river, I have
never felt unsafe.
Growing up on the borderlands, Mexico wasn't really
a foreign country.
Our lives were as fluid as the river
and there was sense of oneness that wasn't
just a sense.
I mean, we're blood.
My dad is a Mexican national.
I have dual citizenship.
I still have family in Mexico.
(light piano music)
[Narrator] Life takes its toll on the delicate butterfly.
Radiant color fades, wings begin to fray.
She can see death on a near horizon.
But if she makes it to this point, fortune
has shined upon her, and every mile flown,
every violent wind, every near escape written
on her tattered wings has bought future
for her children who now dance their brilliance
upon the world.
Death must come, but the wealth of her life lives on.
(light piano music)
(women speaking foreign language)
Several weeks ago, the Trump administration invoked
the waiver of laws, laws designed to protect us,
our air, our water, the species,
our historic landmarks, religious sites, burial grounds.
The habitat that's been deliberately planted
as host and nectar sources for butterflies,
they have the authority really to waive
every single law for this project.
They've already awarded the construction contracts.
The bulldozers should roll in in February.
It's like watching someone die.
You're so powerless.
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
It will be a rape of the land, but you have this aggressor
that just takes everything they want.
I'm not going to give up.
We're gonna keep fighting this battle.
(Zulema speaking foreign language)
(light music)
(Zulema singing in foreign language)