Student Spotlight

The "Student Spotlight" allows students to showcase their ideas and talent in regards to Wetlands and the Las Vegas Wash Project. The Las Vegas Wash Coordination Committee is dedicated to educating our leaders of tomorrow.

Below is an original short story by Jeanelle Baker about the importance of wetlands, told through the eyes of a Swallowtail Butterfly.

Jeanelle Baker Age: 14 Augusta, Georgia

Swallowtail Butterfly

Hello, my name is Precious the Swallowtail Butterfly. I am writing this book about my life to convince all humans to save the wetlands. All you care about is clearing the land for your businesses. But you don't realize that you need them more than you think.

Wetlands are unique areas with features all their own, which change from season to season. Thousands of plant and animal species live in wetlands. They are found all over the world. Wetlands are areas covered with water, some or all of the time. Wetlands include a variety of different areas such as marshes, swamps, bogs, wet meadows, sloughs, potholes, river overflow lands, and tide flats. I can live in any of these areas throughout the term of my life span.

Wetlands also have three different characteristics. A wetland can be covered with water or waterlogged soil for at least seven days during the growing season. Waterlogged soil contains so much water, that there is no room for oxygen, which can also be referred to as hydric soil. This type of wetland is important to me because my prey needs this kind of water to live and my fellow critters need this water to lay eggs, get food, or even somewhere to live. Plant life is also adapted in wetlands. Special plants, like hydrophytes have adapted to life in the wetlands. This means they are water loving and can grow in the hydric soil. I need these plants to lay my eggs for reproduction. Without these various plants I would not be here today. This is where my life begins as an egg. Eventually, I will grow into a larva and crawl around the ground constantly growing as I prepare to go into my cocoon, where I will live for a few months until I am an adult. More importantly, the humans need the plants for oxygen.

Many medicines that save millions of people each year, come from the plants that are found in the many different wetlands. The soil is also hydric in many wetlands. This hydric soil is great for evergreen trees. These evergreen trees are important to me in my pupa stage of life when I am living in the cocoon in order to grow into a healthy and beautiful Swallowtail Butterfly.

Once I am a beautiful butterfly, I can go and visit any wetland I choose. I can go to Emergent, Forested, Scrub/Shrub, and Aquatic Wetlands. These wetlands are so important to me, other animals, and critters for many different reasons. Many animals depend on wetlands for their life cycle such as fish, frogs, and mosquitoes, and even critters like me, butterflies. Wetland plants support a large web of life and are very productive, from simple molds to mammals.

Wetlands provide shelter and food for fish, flood control by soaking up the water that falls as rain, and they also slow the spring snow-melt run-off. Wetlands clear the chemical pollution from the water which plants absorb, in order to stay healthy and make oxygen for humans like you. The plants also are needed to make the medicines to keep you healthy. Almost everything that happens in the wetlands is to protect the human welfare. Constantly, while the wetlands are doing many things to keep you and I living, they continue to be a wonderful place to visit, look, listen, learn and experience life.

These are all the many reasons that I beg you to save the wetlands. We need them very much, the more they are depleted, the harder our lives will be. More species will become extinct. If any humans are left on this Earth they will be here by themselves, that would be terrible. Soon, the air will be to polluted to even think about breathing and no machine nor technology can save you. So, I hope you have taken my life story into thought and if you multiply that times billions and billions, you will see just how many living organisms need our wetlands.