How Terroristic Threats Shut Down a Texas Butterfly Sanctuary

Butterflies. One of the most innocent things you can think of, right?

Well, some people disagreed. Now the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas has been shut down indefinitely, because of safety concerns for staff and the public.

Our news partner KWTX is reporting that due to terroristic threats from false conspiracy theories tying the organization to human trafficking, the center had to close.

Butterfly Sanctuary? Really?

For 20 years, the National Butterfly Center has been a nature conservatory for wild butterflies.

In case you're wondering, law enforcement has never had any reason to investigate the organization, or its staff, for human trafficking. There is zero history of any investigations into the conservatory.

So What Triggered This?

According to the Texas Tribune, things got started about 5 years ago, when the National Butterfly Center filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

The lawsuit stated that proposed border wall construction was a threat to butterfly habitats, and would go directly through the area, destroying it.

In 2020, a Texas federal appeals court sided with the sanctuary, ruling that the border plan violated the center's property rights, according to Newsweek.

The lawsuit is still ongoing.

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Things Have Only Gotten Worse

Last month, the harassment escalated.

Kimberly Lowe, who is running for the Republican nomination for the 9th Congressional District of Virginia, visited the nature conservatory in January. She demanded the center give her access to the river “to see all the illegals crossing on the raft” onto the property.

Then things got buck wild.

The center’s executive director Marianna Treviño-Wright says Lowe tackled her when she asked her to leave, and they fought over a cell phone.

According to Newsweek, Lowe then allegedly tried to hit Treviño-Wright's son with her car, screaming obscenities as she left.

Where Is This Place Again?

The center is located on the Rio Grande near the U.S.-Mexico border and has been targeted by the QAnon community for the last five years.

The FBI has identified the QAnon movement as a domestic terrorism threat.