Thousands admire Butterfly House in Jallo Park

LAHORE

The country’s first ever Butterfly House established at newly upgraded Botanical Garden at Jallo Park become the center of attraction of thousands of visitors, including students and women on Sunday.

There were long queues of cars, wagons and buses parked on roads outside the Botanical Garden as the free parking had already filled and was closed for any further entry since Sunday morning. The entry free public park has been gaining popularity among the masses due to its features especially the Butterfly House and Aquarium, Bonsai and Cactus Garden, a treetops walkway, a Rhizotron, a walkway built below th ground level that allows visitors to see roots of trees, tree houses and gazebos.

Established in 2011-12, the Botanical Garden was not known to majority of the citizens but since its recent upgrade by Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) at an estimated cost of Rs 300 million, it is the talk of the town. Social Media sites are full of pictures, videos and selfies of visitors to this marvelous and unique park, which is truly becoming a jewel in the crown of Lahore. The most visited site inside the park is the Butterfly House where around 800 to 1,000 butterflies are flying freely. Though the Butterfly House is a humid place, one can witness hundreds of visitors inside it taking selfies, pictures and making videos of exotic butterfly species. Artificial humidity is created in the house for the butterflies, which moves in a specific temperature. “I have never seen such a beautiful place in my life,” said Jamil Ahmed, a businessman and resident of DHA. He along with his family had came to visit the Botanical Garden after watching a video on Facebook. He said he had visited several countries in Asia and Europe and this vicinity was on a par with all international botanical gardens. A large aquarium hosting golden and other colorful fish was also witnessing a rush of people especially small children who were busy in taking pictures of the fish. “The fish here are very rare and I am visiting this place for the third time,” said Yasmeen, a student and resident of Faisal Town. She said she along with her friends came to this park to spend the holiday.

After the Butterfly House, majority of people walked towards the Treetop Walkway, which is built 40 feet high and enables the visitors to have a full ground view of the entire garden. Right underneath the walkway is Zen Garden, a Japanese Rock Garden. This is a miniature landscape designed with pebbles, rocks and shrubs and one can't understand this while standing on the ground.

Arif, in charge Butterfly House while talking with the scribe said that international experts were being hired to improve the park. He said the Butterfly House was the first of its kind in Pakistan and people from other nearby cities i.e. Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Kasur were visiting this park. “On an average over 1,000 people daily visit this house while on holidays, this number soars to 4,000 to 5,000,” he said.

Shakeel, a resident of Samanabad, said he was a professional photographer and come to take some good pictures of flying butterflies but the guards refused him entry with a camera. He appealed to the authorities to remove this restriction so that people could expose the beautiful butterflies.

Various other visitors to the park while talking with the scribe congratulated the government on establishing this world class entertainment facility in Lahore. They said more butterfly houses should be constructed in other parks of the City especially in Racecourse and Gulshan-e-Iqbal parks so that residents of nearby localities could save their time and fuel.