David James is a local butterfly expert whose latest book, “The Lives of Butterflies,” was published earlier this year by Princeton University Press.
James’ research has focused on reducing the use of insecticides, especially in the viticulture industry, and promoting biological control methods. He has helped coordinate monarch conservation and tagging programs, including getting inmates at Washington State Penitentiary involved in monarch butterfly rearing.
After growing up and earning his undergraduate degree in England, James went to Australia to begin his career as a research technician. He earned his doctoral degree there in 1984.
James lives in Yakima with his family and works out of Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your latest book, “The Lives of Butterflies.” What got you started on it?
It’s almost like a culmination of what I’ve been through in my career and life. It was proposed to me; it’s a series.
I’m always getting asked questions about the lives of butterflies from people when they know I’m a butterfly expert – “How long do they live for? What’s the difference between a moth and a butterfly? Why are they feeding on the wet ground?” and all these questions we cover in the book.
Sir David Attenborough said your first book, “Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies,” was “magisterial.” How did that make you feel?
Very good. I’ve always admired David Attenborough’s work. I haven’t met him unfortunately — if I still lived in England, I probably would have. I’ve got friends over there that have met him.
I wasn’t expecting him to respond — I just was going to send him a copy because he’s the patron of the British Butterfly Conservation Society. So, I knew that he was always interested in butterflies … I figured he would find it interesting, and he clearly did.
What was your first experience with butterflies?
My first experience with butterflies and moths I can remember quite vividly. I was about 8 years old, in my garden in Hemel Hempstead and my father was growing lupine plants. I saw in the lupine plants there were these woolly bear caterpillars, chewing the leaves, and I collected them, two or three, and kept them and looked after and fed them and that’s how it started.
I wanted to catch and rear all the butterflies that I saw. I used to cycle on main roads 10 or 15 miles to habitat where butterflies occurred and catch the butterflies and bring them back and let them lay eggs.
In 1970, I was 14 — which was the year of the first Earth Day — I was in the local paper because I wrote a letter complaining about the local council killing stinging nettles. Because I knew that stinging nettles were the host plant for the tortoiseshell and other butterflies.
I’m quite proud to look back at that now because it’s been the same throughout my whole career and lifetime. I still tell people — on Saturday I told people to grow stinging nettles in an out-of-the-way part of the garden because they provide food for butterflies.
What ought the relationship be between growers and pollinators?
Things have changed a lot in 25 years. There’s a much greater acceptance by most growers now for pollinators and for other insect life. I mean 25 years ago, most farmers thought of insects as all bad. That’s why they sprayed so much.
They’re setting aside a part of their property for flowers and native plants because it helps the pollinators. It also helps their biological control, but they understand that it’s good for pollination. We’re all on the same side now whereas sometimes in the past, it was us and them, and trying to convert farmers to do this.
You’ve lived around the world, in England and Australia. What do you like about Yakima and Central Washington?
It’s very similar to my experience in Australia, really.
Where I was in Australia, which was in the Outback, it was hot and dry, but it was irrigated. So irrigated agriculture from the river, from the snowy mountains. I’d heard of Washington state and all I knew was Seattle and I thought, oh my God, I’m going back to England again and the rain and clouds. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was hot and dry and really nice in the summer.
Where are your favorite places to go to see butterflies?
In Yakima, Snow Mountain Ranch is my go-to place and has been for more than a decade now because it’s a huge area.
I’ve discovered that there are more species of butterflies on Snow Mountain Ranch than there are in the entire United Kingdom, which makes me very happy and the Cowiche Canyon Conservancy is very happy about that too.
We’re very lucky here in the western United States both in terms of the number of butterflies we have but also the space we have too. Habitat loss is one of the reasons we don’t have as many butterflies anymore. But in the western United States we still have a lot of space and habitat compared to Europe, for example.
Are there any lepidopterists (a person who studies butterflies) in particular that inspire you?
One that springs to mind straight away is Bob Pyle. He’s written many books and lives here in the Pacific Northwest, in Washington.
He’s a naturalist like me. He was the first one to welcome me here — he’s a great guy and we share the naturalist thing.
Another guy is named Jon Pelham, and he’s friends with Bob Pyle. And they grew up together as lepidopterists, of sorts. He became a truck driver — he spent his life driving trucks and yet he has put together the taxonomic catalogue of butterflies in the United States.
So he’s the pinnacle of butterfly research and yet he’s just retired from being a truck driver.
It’s interesting how a lot of lepidopterists are just enthusiasts.
You mentioned in the book about something called “the extinction of experience.” What is that?
It comes from Bob Pyle. He coined that term “extinction of experience” back in the last century sometime in one of his writings. He was concerned even in the late ‘90s about kids not having the same experience as he did and I did — going out into the wild and learning about things and instead being confined to technological stuff, iPhones and computers and not experiencing the outdoors.
Decades after, it’s now become a term in academia. Scientists are actually looking into this question about the impact of modern life on nature conservation and kids.
It’s something we have to combat by making sure that kids have that natural, outdoor experience.
We need a lot of people to make sure that things don’t go awry in the future and that people are always going to be there looking out for insects when they’re making policy decisions in government.