For years, Bart (30) dreamed of becoming a biologist. He is interested in butterflies and wants to protect endangered species. Not being able to complete his biology degree put him off. But Bart, who was born with autism, never gave up. He entered the world of butterflies by breeding them. He made important discoveries and now flies around the world – without a diploma – as a renowned butterfly expert.
“I came back from a few months in Uganda. I did research on butterflies there. I was invited by a British entomologist who watches my YouTube videos,” said Bart Coppens as he walked -into his room, pointing to a cupboard with mesh doors: “That’s where I leave the winter butterfly pupa,” he says. He grabs a large brown chrysalis: “This will soon become a beautiful butterfly with beautiful colors.” “Interesting, huh?”
Bart was born with a form of autism: anxiety. People with this type of autism are very interested in a particular subject. They also get a lot of pleasure and happiness from it. Bart has been fascinated by butterflies from an early age. “You don’t have to have autism to look at butterflies, of course, but I think it plays a part in me,” he said. “It’s part of who I am.”
“Butterflies are flexible insects, you can understand them easily.” This ensures that working with butterflies gives Bart a nice feeling. “They don’t have complicated motives like people do. There are many things about butterflies that I can understand just by looking at them. They make sense to me, they always have.”
“Already when I was a small child, I knew that many species of butterflies are in danger,” says Bart. As a ten year old boy he already knew that he had to do something with his interest in butterflies. In later years, he read and learned a lot about the animals, but he wanted more. “I felt like I had to do something with my knowledge to protect these insects,” he says, raising his hand with a butterfly on it to emphasize what he’s talking about. .
It’s not a mainstream hobby, that’s what Bart calls breeding butterflies. “There were always people who raised their eyebrows when they heard about my passion,” he says. “I’m sure there are also people who think I’m a weirdo. It’s also an obsession that I can’t let go of, but I’m happy with that.”
Bart believes that butterflies and other insects do not receive much attention when it comes to protecting animal species. “People always talk about the climate and the environment and at the same time they pour millions into saving pandas. But people don’t really care about saving insects,” he says. “This is because people find them less attractive, less cute or less cool. If you say to people: we need to protect a species of butterfly, they think you’re crazy. Although which have at least as much right to exist as a panda.”
A failed biologist
At the age of 18, Bart took big steps to make his dream come true. He trained in biology to become a psychologist. “I was excited about this. I thought it was the way to fulfill my dream.” He just couldn’t complete the training. “I still can’t sit in class or at a desk to do homework.”
However, Bart did not give up and after a year he made a second attempt to finish the biology course. This failed again. “I was bitter about that. It felt like my dream had been destroyed twice. I called myself a failed biologist for a long time after that.”
Bart saw that as a distraction. “If you are 25 years old, you have big dreams but without a diploma, nobody will take you seriously.
Stubbornly
Bart has a good quality, he says with a smile: “I’m weird and I don’t give up.” So he started his own website. “Because I really want to talk about the subject and make people aware of the importance of butterflies, I also wrote a lot about it.” He kept track of the life cycles of the butterflies he was studying. breeding. “I have hundreds of butterfly life cycles on the website.”
He also started making videos about the butterflies he breeds. He publishes the videos himself Youtube channel. “I present it in a fun way to get people interested,” he says, “I did this for five years without anyone caring. Only then did I start getting viewers and to gain followers.”
Search
Bart now has 40,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 200,000 followers on Instagram. Tens of thousands of people watch his videos. In a low voice he says, “I have been a conqueror.” Not only were ordinary people interested in what he does. Scientists also looked at his website and liked it. Bart turned out to have made a special discovery. “I discovered a previously unknown life cycle of a moth in Costa Rica.” This was published in scientific article under my name.”
Now Bart travels around the world at the invitation of researchers and nature organizations to participate in butterfly research and protection programs. He traveled to Cambodia and Laos to breed butterflies for butterfly gardens. He was also invited by the Reserva Ecologica de Guapiaçu nature reserve in Brazil to breed butterflies that were soon threatened in the rainforest. “I’ve still got some paperwork to do and then I can go,” he says with twinkling eyes. Artists would love that too Bart with butterfly figures in their artwork.
Butterfly Man
It feels wrong for Bart that he was only taken seriously after he gained a lot of followers on social media. “It’s strange that we live in a world where people are more likely to look at the number of followers someone has and not the knowledge and passion that person has,” he says. , “But anyway, for me it’s another way of sharing. my dream, so I’m glad it turned out this way.”
Since last year, Bart has been studying environmental science at the Open University in Amsterdam. He can follow this at his own pace, which gives him confidence that he will be able to complete the study this time. He no longer sees himself as a failed biologist. “Because of what I have achieved, I secretly call myself a biologist,” he says, “although Butterfly Man sounds even better.”
Sunday interview
Every Sunday we publish an interview in text and pictures of someone who has or has experienced something special. That can be a big event that the person deals with admirably. The Sunday interviews seem to have had a profound effect on the interviewee’s life.
Are you or do you know someone who would be suitable for an interview on Sunday? Contact us through this email address: zondaginterview@rtl.nl
A lesson here the earlier Sunday interviews.
2024-04-28 06:12:11
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