Smithsonian Will Charge For Butterfly Pavilion
History Museum Fee Marks Institutional First For a Permanent Exhibit

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Butterflies are not going to be free, at least not at the Smithsonian Institution.

In a rare move, the Smithsonian is going to charge admission for part of a new permanent exhibition called "Butterflies and Plants: Partners in Evolution."

Admission to the Smithsonian's Washington museums has always been free, and the legislation and wills creating four of its museums -- the National Portrait Gallery, the Freer Gallery of Art, the National Museum of African Art and the Hirshhorn Museum -- specifically ban admission fees. But in recent years some lawmakers have been pushing Smithsonian officials to find new ways of meeting expenses.

The National Museum of Natural History's two-tier look at butterflies will open in November. There will be a general exhibition that will focus on the evolution of plants and butterflies. It will include a window looking into a special pavilion filled with live tropical butterflies. All that will be free. But visitors who want to enter the Butterfly Pavilion, a climate-controlled space with about 300 to 400 butterflies whizzing around, will have to pay.

The Smithsonian Board of Regents approved the admission policy at its January meeting, according to the full minutes of that session, obtained by The Washington Post. The members of the Smithsonian governing board were told that the tickets would most likely cost $5. The minutes also indicate that the fees would be waived one day a week.

"All income generated from admissions will be used to support the operation of the Butterfly Pavilion, the Insect Zoo and related activities," the minutes said. The Smithsonian has on rare occasions charged admission for temporary exhibitions but never for a permanent installation. (Its New York museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, charges admission.)

Immediate reaction to the decision was mixed.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, endorsed the idea yesterday. "This exhibit sounds like a wonderful addition to the Smithsonian collection, and I'm happy to hear that they have found a creative way to make it available for visitors to enjoy," she said.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee, who has been monitoring financial issues at the Smithsonian, said the timing wasn't right to start charging admission. "They ought to mothball this idea until they sharpen their pencils on wasteful spending," Grassley said. "As long as senior managers have a sense of entitlement and an anything-goes culture about spending, museum-goers can't have confidence that charging admission is really a last resort."

Butterfly pavilions are expensive ventures because the butterflies and plants have short life spans and need to be replaced frequently. The regents were told the annual operating cost is about $900,000.

The butterfly exhibition will cost $3 million, said Elizabeth Duggal, the museum's associate director for external affairs and public programs.

Robert Sullivan, the former associate director for public programs at the museum, was part of the planning team and predicted that the public would accept the fee.

"The plan is to use the money to support butterfly research and the house itself," Sullivan said. "The animals are fragile; you have to raise them, and put them in every day. You have to have a greenhouse for the plants and you have to burn the plants every six months. It is an expensive facility to run. But butterflies are a great learning experience."

At Natural History two temporary exhibitions have had admission fees: "Amber: Window to the Past," in 1997, and "Dinamation's Dinosaurs Alive and in Color," in 1990. The Smithsonian also charges admission at its three Imax theaters, plus the planetarium and the simulator rides at the National Air and Space Museum.

"The public never had hesitation about paying for specialty events," Sullivan said.

The pavilion was designed by Smithsonian staff to create a hospitable environment for the insects. "Our goal is to keep them flying without wearing them out," said exhibition developer Sally Love. The butterflies will be drawn to light, with lamps substituting for natural light, she said. It is not clear how long each visitor will stay, because the 1,400-square-foot pavilion will be heated to 80 degrees and 80 percent humidity. The organizers estimate that 30 people at a time will be able to visit the smaller area, and they predict 200,000 visitors a year.

The Smithsonian is using farms in Latin America, Africa, Asia and North America to supply the butterfly pupae.

Attendance at the 96-year-old Natural History Museum grew 33 percent during the first four months of this year, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to acting Smithsonian Secretary Cristián Samper, the former director of the museum. That is partly because the adjacent American History Museum closed last September for renovations; it is scheduled to reopen in fall 2008.

The American Museum of Natural History, a New York museum that is not federally funded, operates its butterfly show eight months a year. Admission to the museum, with a special butterfly charge, is $21 for adults and $13 for children. The museum-only fee for adults is a suggested $14.