Prisoners Work To Save Endangered Butterfly

Most people hear the word prisoner and assume the worst, after all, that person is in jail because they did something wrong for which society has said they should be punished. One prison is proving, however, that there may be hope yet for those who have found themselves behind bars. The inmates at Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Belfair, Washington, have embraced a movement to save the endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha taylori). Working with guards and graduate students, a select group of prisoners are actively breeding the beautiful insects for release back into the wild. In a greenhouse just outside of the prison, the team works to not only continue raising the butterflies' numbers through breeding but have also conducted studies to determine which flowers it prefers to lay eggs on in the hopes that planting more such flowers will help the species bounce back from the brink.

This is all part of an initiative by the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP), a group that is working to utilize an untapped resource in the form of prisoners who want to help make amends and make the world a better place. The SPP treats the inmates as collaborators instead of manual labor. The inmates apply for  positions on the teams and receive training, education and a small wage. Together with the SPP, they have helped to conserve endangered butterflies, frogs, flowering plants and moss. So far 800 butterflies have been reintroduced to the wild with 3,600 more being prepped for next year.

Efforts to determine which plant the butterflies prefer show that they tend toward the golden paintbrush, a native plant of Washington, but with that plant also being threatened, the butterflies had been laying their eggs on plantain plants which are an introduced species. With this knowledge, the SPP hopes to increase efforts to save both the butterflies and the golden paintbrush.

The SPP projects also extend to other prisons where inmates are working to save prairie plants and spotted frogs.

Deaf Man Finally Hears Music For The First Time

Austin Chapman and his new hearing aid.

For film maker Austin Chapman, music had always been a mystery he could never quite comprehend. He could see people gyrating on the dance floor or singing at the top of their lungs in their cars, but their actions were foreign to him. Austin had been born "proufoundly deaf", which meant that while he wasn't totally without the ability to hear, sounds were so drastically reduced that they were little more than muffled noise without a hearing aid. Even with his old aids, the subtle changes that made music so powerful were totally lost on Austin. The devices meant to help him hear were simply not able to pick up the higher frequencies in music.

"All music sounded like trash through my hearing aids," he confessed on his film studio's blog. Last week, however, Austin was fitted with a new set of hearing aids and suddenly his world was turned on it's head. "The first thing I heard was my shoe scraping across the carpet; it startled me. I have never heard that before and out of ignorance, I assumed it was too quiet for anyone to hear. I sat in the doctor’s office frozen as a cacophony of sounds attacked me."

With his new hearing in place, Austin set out to figure out why there was so much fuss over music. That night, his friends began to offer him a whole range of music with tastes ranging from Rolling Stones to Michael Jackson and more. While sitting in the car, Austin heard Motzart's Lacrimosa for the first time and found himself moved to tears.

"At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it. But when I looked over I saw that there wasn’t a dry eye in the car."

With his world suddenly opened, Austin reached out to the Internet for help in picking music to take in. He posted to the popular site Reddit and received incredible support and feedback with over 14,000 responses to his original request for music within mere hours of his post. Despite this, Austin states that he still enjoys silence the most as it helps him think, but he is immesurably greatful for all of the suggestions on music selection.

"The Reddit commenters also helped me realize what a gift I have now, being able to enjoy utter silence and music at the same time. Not just that, but in a virginal unbiased way that very few people have," he told the Huffington Post.