On a cool spring morning in Washington state, the work of saving an endangered species unfolds in an unlikely place: a greenhouse just outside the perimeter of a women’s prison. Inside, trays of host plants line long tables. Tiny eggs cling to plantain leaves. Black, yellow-dotted larvae inch forward in slow motion. A small group of women tends to them with the precision of lab technicians and the patience of gardeners.  This is where the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly, once common across Pacific Northwest prairies, is being brought back from the brink. Its future depends on people like Margaret Taggart, who found something she did not expect to discover in prison: a sense of purpose. “I’ve always had a love for butterflies, for nature and plants,” she says. “But I didn’t even know butterflies are endangered. The education was eye-opening.” “To be able to nurture something, to take care of a creature that emerges as this beautiful butterfly, that’s just so fulfilling,” says Margaret Taggart (right). Courtesy of the Sustainability in Prisons Project Kelli Bush, who coordinates the program for the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP), describes captive rearing as a “last resort.” In this case, it’s a response to the fact that Taylor’s checkerspot has lost 97 percent of its native prairie-oak habitat, which has been fragmented by development, agriculture and invasive species. Without large-scale habitat restoration, the butterfly cannot sustain itself in the wild, and without the prison effort, it might already have gone extinct.  What happens inside the program is therefore both rescue and rehabilitation, an effort to restore a butterfly population while also restoring the people who care for it. Taggart began training as a butterfly technician at the low security Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCV) in January 2025. The process resembled getting a job on the outside: She applied, spoke with a panel and earned her place. Inside prison, identity is often reduced to a number or a record. Here, Taggart was selected for her interest, her aptitude, her willingness to learn. “I got the job,” she recalls, brushing back one of the chest-length dark curls that fall over her gray prison sweater, “and it felt like something real.” Without large-scale habitat restoration, this butterfly species cannot sustain itself in the wild, and without the prison effort, it might already have gone extinct. Courtesy of the Sustainability in Prisons Project She describes the work with the orange-white pollinators as repetitive, rewarding and strangely tender. Each butterfly is raised individually on its own host plant, usually a plantain, and a nectar plant to prevent disease and preserve genetic diversity. The women track egg clusters so that family lines are not mixed. As the larvae hatch and grow, they pass through developmental stages that require constant attention: feeding, cleaning, monitoring. “I make sure that she’s eating and drinking, that her plant is well maintained,” Taggart says. “I monitor her eggs every single day.” The technicians log growth rates, mortality, environmental conditions, building a dataset that contributes to conservation science. Weighed down by negative news? Our smart, bright, weekly newsletter is the uplift you’ve been looking for. [contact-form-7] For Taggart, the process creates an emotional bond. “To be able to nurture something, to take care of a creature that emerges as this beautiful butterfly, that’s just so fulfilling,” the mother of three says. “You watch them from the moment they’re born; it feels like you know them.” Since its early years, the program has helped raise and release 80,000 caterpillars into restored prairie habitats. But the deeper aim is twofold: to recover a species that can no longer survive without intervention, and to offer incarcerated women a form of education and engagement that is rarely available behind bars.