RETIRED RANGER SPENDS HIS DAYS WITH BUTTERFLIES.Byline: R.A. Hutchinson Daily News Staff Writer His fascination with butterflies started when Bill Coleman William Johnson Coleman (born August 4, 1904 in Paris, Kentucky; died August 24, 1981 in Toulouse) was a jazz trumpeter from the swing era. He had his musical debut in 1927. was a young boy, netting specimens in his South Gate home and identifying the winged creatures. He's long since given up collecting - he no longer believes in killing - but the retired park ranger's interest in the delicate insects hasn't waned. Coleman even raises monarchs at his Ventura home, providing the butterflies with a South African variety of milkweed milkweed, common name for members of the Asclepiadaceae, a family of mostly perennial herbs and shrubs characterized by milky sap, a tuft of silky hairs attached to the seed (for wind distribution), and (usually) a climbing habit. for egg-laying. ``I still get a thrill from watching the whole sequence,'' the 73-year-old said. ``I have three pupae and two larvae Larvae, in Roman religion Larvae: see lemures. in the house and one pupa pupa (py  `pə), name for the third stage in the life of an insect that undergoes complete metamorphosis, i.e., develops from the egg through the larva and the pupa stages to the adult. in the yard.'' From egg to larva larva, in zoology larva, independent, immature animal that undergoes a profound change, or metamorphosis, to assume the typical adult form. Larvae occur in almost all of the animal phyla; because most are tiny or microscopic, they are rarely seen. to pupa to full-winged adult, the butterflies are Coleman's special link to nature. ``My favorite course in college was entomology entomology, study of insects, an arthropod class that comprises about 900,000 known species, representing about three fourths of all the classified animal species. . I just loved it,'' he said. After attending college at the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). at Davis to study science and landscaping, Coleman went to work at Will Rogers State Park as a gardener in the 1950s. He quickly decided that what he really wanted to do was become a park ranger for the state system. Over the 23 years until his retirement a few years ago, Coleman worked at several state parks from Santa Cruz to Monterey. ``I was lucky enough to be stationed in four state parks that have butterfly trees,'' he said. It was at Point Lobos, however, that his hobby became a passion. A visitor to the northern park learned of Coleman's interest in butterflies - the ranger often sat and studied the insects for hours in the park. When the man returned to his home on the East Coast, he mailed back 50 slides of butterflies to Coleman as a gift. ``I'd been studying them before, but that got me totally involved,'' Coleman said. Another park visitor also encouraged Coleman. The man was a Canadian scientist banding butterflies for the University of Toronto Research at the University of Toronto has been responsible for the world's first electronic heart pacemaker, artificial larynx, single-lung transplant, nerve transplant, artificial pancreas, chemical laser, G-suit, the first practical electron microscope, the first cloning of T-cells, . He asked for the ranger's help. ``When he left, I wrote to the University of Toronto and asked them if I could keep doing the bands. They sent me the bands,'' he said. Coleman said he now devotes his time to studying and lecturing about butterflies. He's part of the Ventura County Superintendent of School's lecture program, S.E.A.S.O.N.S., which stands for Senior Experts and Speakers On Numerous Subjects. ``That's my thing now,'' Coleman said. His lectures and slide shows focus mainly on the monarch butterfly because Coleman became interested in its migration patterns. For a while, his home was directly under a flight path the butterflies followed south to spend the winter in the area. Other native species such as the painted lady and the cabbage butterfly are slowly disappearing, Coleman said, because of pesticide spraying in the heavily agricultural county. Also, development is taking away more and more of the open space where butterflies breed and live. ``The one point of my lectures is don't kill butterflies. You can study them, raise them, but don't make a collection,'' he said. ``Preserve and protect them.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: (color in SIMI SIMI Sea Ice Mechanics Initiative SIMI Search for Intelligent Monkeys on the Internet SIMI Students Islamic Movement in India SIMI Society of Irish Motor Industry SIMI Smallholder Irrigation Markets Initiative edition only) Bill Coleman, who caugh t butterflies as a boy and then as a park ranger, is now firmly against killing the creatures during collection. Dusty Locke/Special to the Daily News |
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