Monday, August 13, 2012

B. C. Road Trip (7): Victoria Butterfly Gardens


Victoria Butterfly Gardens which actually is not located in Victoria, like Greater Vancouver Zoo which is not in Vancouver, is located in at least half an hour drive from the city. As well, there are not gardens as the title suggest. There actually is one small building and it is amazing how people make money out of it. Nonetheless I enjoyed my time over there but they could have made it much more pleasant.
This places as the name says it all is a live butterfly show like what I saw in Calgary Zoo but a little vaster. I don't know how but they also gathered a bunch of other animals and display them as well. There were two flamingos, a small bird with a long beck, two dozen small birds which in the first glance they look like pheasants but they are not. F. F. asked one of the crew and the answer was that they would not grow more than that. Then there were two kind of turtles and I guess one of them is not called turtle but is from the same family of course. There were frogs, lizards and so on but the most amazing one was a chameleon. The poor animal had little room to move around, just like the turtles.
Pardon my language but these idiots has assigned a big room as video room and another one as the gift shop but did not give enough room to these poor animals to be able to move around a bit. It's understandable that the gift shop makes money but what's the f**king point for a huge room for watching video!? Nobody is there to watch the butterflies, flowers and other sorts of creatures on the screen. In fact if anyone wants to watch them on a monitor, they will not travel to these so called gardens so that is a very bad idea having a video room. another thing is like many places in Canada, there is a little or no supervision. You could simply get in without even paying but I guess that old belief that no one gets in without paying still stays.
I guess if you want to see the beautiful flowers and plants, as well as all the animals and butterflies of course you will need some 2 hour especially because many people drop their anchors in the cafe and roam around the gift shop to spend a few more bucks but it really depends on you how to cop with the humid and hot weather that they have prepared for the butterflies, plants and animals.
Overall we had a good time in there and compare to the other places that we have been to, and one major one is left to be said, it was not a big rip off and it's recommended. I have to add that because we docked at a bay close to Victoria, it was only a few minutes drive for us to get to this place. If you get to the Vancouver Island and find yourself anywhere else rather than Swartz Bay you might want think twice before going especially if you have no kids and no Passion for animals and plants like I do.
(Photo: I took this photo from a butterfly while it was eating banana. It was amazing to watch them eat like that. I guess if we had some fruit juice dripped on hands from the fruit that we normally keep in the car we could attract some of them and take nicer photos of beautiful butterflies while sitting on our hands. We didn't go back to our vehicle to do that. May be you will)

2 comments:

David Roberts said...

Hello "Tough Guy"

Thank you for your review of Victoria Butterfly Gardens. I am glad that you seemed to enjoy your visit but after reading your entire review there are a number of points I would like to address.

1. While it is true that Victoria Butterfly Gardens is not located in the municipality of Victoria we are located in Greater Victoria.

2. Your comment regarding not having gardens in incorrect. We have a number of different types of gardens located in our facility, foods of the world, carnivorous plant garden, plants of Columbia garden to name a few. All of these gardens are housed within the main facility.

3. you wondered how we came to have our animals? It is important to note that approximately 90% of the animals we have are rescue animals. We have been asked by local veterinarians and people who can no longer look after the animals if we would take them in. As we have the only tropical facility in Victoria, we are happy to assist as long as it is practical. We are inspected by veterinarians and the SPCA to insure that the animals are healthy and have what they need in order to thrive in this environment.

We are offered many animals that we do not accept for various reasons as the well-being of our inhabitants dictates to us what we can and cannot do.

4.Our video room is used to educate our guests about our facility and is also home to our new Birds of Prey display. It is also used as a teaching tool by many large school groups when they come to the gardens.

Lastly we do not encourage the handling of butterflies or using different methods in order to get them to land on you. This will only harm the butterflies and our job is to preserve the wildlife that call Victoria Butterfly Gardens home.

Again thank you for your review and I hope this answers any questions you or your readers may have about us.

The Tough Guy said...

Mr. Roberts,
I would like to stress again that I had a good time in there but you missed the most important question: The animals do not have much room to move around especially the turtle family and you have a big Video Room which is barely used. This issue can not be fixed easily, I know but could have been seen in the original design of the place.
Regards
T. T. G.