Bamberg County couple builds butterfly conservatory to aid monarchs

Katey and Sean Reid turned their Bamberg County homestead into Monarch Ranch Butterfly Conservatory, LLC, a public habitat they opened in 2023 and celebrated with a grand opening on July 22, 2023. Built with repurposed materials, the butterfly house sits inside a larger system of flowers, bees, butterflies and farm animals tied together by compost and a self-dug stream. The Reids have made Monarch Ranch what Bamberg County knows as its official butterfly conservatory.

Sean Reid said the idea grew from noticing fewer places where native species gathered in one place and wanting to create a space where butterflies, birds and hummingbirds could pass through. Katey Reid said the project took shape after the couple bought a chrysalis and watched it emerge. What started as curiosity became a working habitat, one designed to keep native species visible in a county landscape that can otherwise lose those pockets of life.

The effort lands at a time when monarchs are under intense pressure. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says monarchs migrate each year from as far away as Canada across the United States to overwinter in Mexico and coastal California, and that numbers have declined over the past two decades. In December 2024, the agency proposed listing the monarch butterfly as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Its 2024 species status assessment said listing the species as endangered or threatened had been warranted but precluded in 2020. Conservation groups have cited declines of more than 80% in the eastern migratory population since the 1990s and more than 95% in the western population since the 1980s.

South Carolina has a monarch story of its own. On July 11, 2023, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources announced that a five-year study had identified a unique group of monarchs living year-round in coastal South Carolina, using swamps in spring, summer and fall and sea islands in winter. State environmental guidance also points residents toward Monarch Waystations and other pollinator habitat, reinforcing the idea that private yards and small farms can support broader conservation.

For Bamberg County, the Reids’ conservatory offers a practical model: use native plantings, build with materials already on hand, keep compost in the loop and provide habitat that supports more than one species. At Monarch Ranch, that approach has already created a place where monarchs can be part of the daily landscape instead of a disappearing sight.