This year, Boone's struggle continues, but she has come to the realization that her endeavor is much more complicated and much more ambitious.
"My objective is to get oil companies and agribusinesses to write the check for the Butterfly Palace," Boone said. "My other goal now is to educate the public along the California coastline about the loss of butterfly habitat. Many people don't even know that these habitats exist.
With the most famous site here in Pismo Beach, Boone said there are 12 wintering I sites for the western monarch butterfly in California. That is a small fraction of the 200 sites along the Pacific coast.
"We have the most endangered butterfly habitat in the world," Boone said. "There are a lot of scientific reasons that we need to study the western monarch. Not much is known about them, but their welfare is related to our own environment and health needs."
In an effort to keep her ultimate goal afloat and to raise awareness about the plight of western monarch habitat, Boone is now cooperating with Long's Drug Stores in Pismo Beach and Santa Maria to raise money. Each store will have a display with matted and framed monarch butterfly photographs. Proceeds from the sale of these photographs will help Boone in her efforts to educate the public about butterfly habitat.
"Western monarch habitats are not protected," she said. "We need to make people aware of the need to save and manage these sites. If not, they will be gone in 10 years."
While the Pismo site is part of the State Parks system, other sites, such as one in Cayucos and another in northern Santa Barbara County, are privately o)vned and could fall victim to development. She plans to develop a program of school visitations as well as other efforts to raise awareness.
While Boone said she has been looking at sites for the Butterfly Palace for several months and attending meeting after meeting to generate interest, she is coming to the realization that she cannot do it alone.
"We need volunteers and we need donations to carry us " Boone said. She said while Speedling nursery in Nipomo and SLO County Supervisor-elect Katcho Achadjian have made cash donations to the Butterfly Palace, Intercraft has donated frames and matting for the photographs and Kodak Processing Center has donated the processing costs.
"The photos are taken in the wild on our own endangered sites," Boone said. "One of those sites is for sale."
The Butterfly Palace ultimately will be a living and leaming museum of butterflies. Boone has set up a non-profit, public benefit status for the cause. The palace is expected to cost $200 million and will be modeled after other such centers that have popped up around the country.
"The key to the preservation of over-wintering (monarch) butterfly sites, in addition to their acquisition, is through purposeful enhancement of established groves," according to Dr. Kingston Leong, head of the entomology department at Cal Poly and a member of the board of directors for Butterfly Palace. "The goals of the Daniel Boone Butterfly Palace are to educate the general public in native and endangered species of butterflies and to support research..."
S. Boone Productions, Siamak Sehat,
Photographer