From Airwaves to Insects

May 20, 2016

The GT Butterfly House and Bug Zoo

Turning a career 180 is no easy feat. But Traverse City native Cyndie Roach, with help from her husband, Rob, has taken a lifelong inspiration and turned it into a rewarding job that’s allowed her to truly appreciate the smaller things in life.

Northern Michigan residents might recognize Roach from her former career in broadcasting. She was an on-air personality at WKLT-FM for many years, starting at the radio station on her 16th birthday and rising through the industry to work as a production director. But after a successful career, Roach was ready to leave radio behind.

“I actually had a great job,” Roach said. “It wasn’t really the job itself. It was stable and paid well. But I had gone through a lot of personal losses in a very short period of time, watching people close to me die too soon. That kind of thing really makes you look at your own life, and I felt like there was no challenge in my job any more for me, personally. And I didn’t feel like I was making a difference.”

Roach said she had always loved animals, so she started looking at other options. “I figured if I wasn’t going to make millions of dollars anyway, I might as well do something I loved,” she said. She attended the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo in Gainesville, Fla., an unusual program that allows students to get degrees at a working zoo.

“I thought I should try harder to do something where I could leave something behind for the world,” Roach said. “It took three years to get my degree. And through learning more about zoos, I discovered it is expensive and difficult to maintain giraffes, elephants, and lions, so I opted to start with a micro-zoo.”

And so, in October of 2014, the GT Butterfly House and Bug Zoo was born. Cyndie Roach is the zoo’s curator, and her husband works as zoo manager. “This project is profoundly something that is near and dear to my heart,” Roach said. “People often say, ‘Huh, it doesn’t look like much from the outside, but once you get inside, wow!’” The zoo’s anchor is a tranquil 10,000 square foot tropical butterfly garden with a waterfall and music playing quietly in the background.

About 400 butterflies currently call the zoo home; that number will increase to 800 over the summer. “It’s a wonderful experience, with butterflies from all over the world flying freely around you,” Roach said. After you leave the butterfly house, you enter the bug zoo, which features several different detailed exhibits suitable for endless watching of the little inhabitants that live within. One of the most popular exhibits is the Honeybee Observation Hive, which allows visitors to watch bees as they’re making honey and see the inner workings of a hive as the bees come and go from the building, Roach said. Nearby is the Tarantula Tree, which boasts nine species of exotic tarantula spiders, including the third largest in the world.

Elsewhere in the zoo, the Beetle Boulder exhibit — a boulder with large windows cut into it — showcases the inner habitats of such insects as praying mantids, millipedes, and blue feigning death beetles. And the Frogs! exhibit features a delightfully colorful and comprehensive range of amphibians, from horned frogs and poison dart frogs to firebelly toads — “Those love to greet visitors,” Roach said. There visitors also will find axolotls, the unusual amphibian known as the Mexican walking fish or neotenic salamander; they breathe through external gills, and always look as if they have a smile on their face.

Roach says she and her husband purposefully chose their pastoral Williamsburg location to ensure she and her husband would have room to expand the zoo later. (Already they’ve added a nature walk and education pavilion.)

Importing exotic creatures takes a lot of paperwork. “All places like ours are standardized by the federal government,” Roach explained. “We were thoroughly vetted by USDA officers, and we hold over 400 permits. We’d asked to import so many different species that they ended up taking several looks at our zoo to make sure we were legit! The USDA officers and I have a great relationship now, and I agree with the need for what they do, because they’re helping protect these species.”

Zoos can also be controversial places; there is an ongoing debate whether they are humane places for wild animals to live, even those as small as butterflies and insects. Roach understands this concern. “I believe that the more you know about a species, the better you can help take care of them,” she said. “Getting to know our insects, for example, will hopefully make people think twice about how they look at bugs, how they treat their lawns, how they use chemicals and pesticides. The biggest thing is conservation and education. If you don’t know a species is in trouble, how can you save it?” This thinking goes along with Roach’s new life goal of trying to leave the world a little better than she found it. “That, and making some really fun memories,” she said. “It would also be great to have people come back here in 20 years, to tell me that they remember visiting the zoo way back when — and bringing in a whole new generation of visitors.” The GT Butterfly House and Bug Zoo is located at 8840 E. M-72 in Williamsburg, (231) 944-0774. For hours, tickets, and more information, find them online at gtbutterflyzoo.com.