The Maui Butterfly Farm — Attraction in Maui

We had a wonderful time at the butterfly farm! It's a very hands-on experience; you actually get to hold the caterpillars and praying mantises, and let them crawl on you. You also get to feed the butterflies by dipping a finger in nectar, and holding still while they delicately perch to drink. Some of the butterfly species perched on flowers instead, so they give out beautiful hibiscus flowers for everyone to hold for the butterflies to perch on. The staff makes sure everyone gets a chance to feed the butterflies.

It's a great opportunity to take some sweet pictures and videos of the beautiful flowers and butterflies. I was able to get the butterfly to land on a flower and then placed the flower with the butterfly behind my ear. You have to be quick with the camera, though, so I recommend video. You can really see those wings beating in the video! :)

This is a great educational experience for children. The staff are so friendly and knowledgeable. They are great with kids, and have a real love and respect of nature and the environment. They are happy to answer questions. They give everyone a little sticker and a seed packet of milkweed (an important plant for butterflies, since it is the only plant monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on). The seeds are fine to take back to the mainland as long as you don't open the packet.

They offer kama'aina rates. It's a small place, and a bit of a short adventure, probably only takes a little over an hour. You can make a morning or afternoon trip of it with the lovely coastal drive to get there, and you can also stop by the Olowalu General Store or Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop, which is famous for delicious pies. Both are right next door. There are also petroglyphs in the area that you can hike to see if you like (about a 10...

We were eager to learn more about Hawaiian butterflies and the butterfly farm’s conservation efforts. The tour was heavily focused on monarchs with a brief time talking about swallowtails and mantises. Monarchs and swallowtails were introduced to Hawaii. The two native species of butterflies, Blackburn’s blue and the Kamehameha do not thrive in the butterfly farm’s location near Lahaina. This seems to indicate the butterfly farm isn’t in the right location for the type of work they want to do.

Our guide shared that they do not release any of the butterflies they raise: they just keep them for tours. They have milkweed planted outside the tents where they raise the butterflies, but beyond that, it wasn’t clear what, if anything, they are doing to address any real ecological problems in Maui. We have plenty of opportunities to learn about and hold monarch caterpillars on the mainland and they are free.

Edit to add that we did not arrive late and we did not miss any part of the tour. We are already involved in conservation efforts for many beneficial pollinators on...

Touring the butterfly farm was a really fun and interesting activity! Rema was our guide; she taught our group about the lifecycle of butterflies. Each member of the group who wanted to, was given a caterpillar to hold; mine was very active, quickly crawling from hand to hand. After spending a few minutes with the caterpillars, they were out back into their “homes” and we went into the first butterfly room. Small containers of peaches were around the room and we were told to dip our fingers into the liquid and then shown how to encourage the butterflies off of flowers and onto our fingers. There were several different kinds of butterflies all over the room. We then moved to the last room, everyone was given a red hibiscus flower and a different kind of flowering “weed”. The butterflies came pretty quickly to everyone settling on the flowers to feed on the nectar. I would highly recommend a visit to the Maui...