Inside Oregon’s only women’s prison, a conservation program works to restore an endangered butterfly, raising questions about care, purpose, and access to nature.
Upcoming Screenings
We are excited to announce the film will have its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana on February 14th, 2026. The film was also selected for the Best Short Competition.
The Butterfly Lab is a personal, character-driven look inside a medium-security women’s prison in Oregon, where conservation work and incarceration intersect in unexpected ways. It follows two women as they help raise the endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly over it’s lifecycle, and as they reflect on the long arc of their own lives inside. Their daily routines in the lab become a quiet way to talk about time, purpose, and what it means to care for something fragile while incarcerated.
This website offers additional context about the science behind the lab and the species for those curious to learn more. Below, you’ll find background on the lab’s role in recovery efforts and more about Taylor’s checkerspot and why it’s endangered.
The Butterfly Lab at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Oregon was a collaborative captive-rearing program focused on the federally endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly. Launched in 2017, the program operated through partnerships between the Oregon Department of Corrections, the Oregon Zoo, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and conservation organizations including the Institute for Applied Ecology.
The lab functioned inside the state’s women’s prison, where butterfly larvae were reared and host plants cultivated in support of broader recovery efforts in Pacific Northwest prairie ecosystems. The work brought together correctional staff, federal and state wildlife agencies, nonprofit conservation groups, and zoo professionals, linking ecological science with daily care and restoration practices carried out within the facility.
In September 2025, the program was shut down following federal funding cuts implemented under the Trump administration that affected multiple endangered species and habitat restoration initiatives nationwide.
There are stories from the 1990s of prairies so full of checkerspots that cars had to slow or stop because the road was so full of butterflies.
Today, the Taylor’s checkerspot is endangered, now surviving in only a few small, isolated populations in the Pacific Northwest.
Once found across open prairies from southern British Columbia through western Washington and into Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the butterfly depends on intact grassland ecosystems and specific native plants to complete its life cycle. As those prairies were converted to agriculture, development, and invasive grasses, its range rapidly contracted. Today, habitat loss and fragmentation continue to shape the butterfly’s fragile existence.
Because Taylor’s checkerspot does not travel far and relies on a narrow set of environmental conditions, recovery is difficult once populations disappear. Conservation efforts now focus on restoring native prairie habitat, cultivating host plants, and carefully rearing butterflies in controlled settings to support wild populations. The Butterfly Lab is part of that effort, connecting hands-on care with long-term recovery and the possibility of returning this species to the landscapes it once inhabited.
Sean Grasso
The story of the Butterfly Lab was documented by Sean Grasso, a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Oregon. His work often sits at the intersection of environment, community, and ethics, with a focus on observational storytelling and long-term collaboration with his subjects. He is currently directing The Caldera, a feature-length documentary about lithium mining, Indigenous land rights, and ecological change in the McDermitt Caldera region.
With a deep background in cinematography, Sean brings a visually grounded, patient approach to his films, prioritizing trust, respect, and accountability. His work focuses on stories that are rarely documented and would likely go unseen without sustained access and time.
E-mail: sndgrasso [at] gmail [dot] com