Insect Festival Flies Through Encinitas

Hundreds of visitors buzzed by the San Diego Botanic Gardens on Saturday and Sunday to see the weird and wonderful at the Encinitas Insect Festival. The festival featured a wide variety of insects and other animals as well as vendor tables selling unusual products. Here are some of the festival highlights:

 The Insects and Other Creatures

Naturally, a variety of crawly creatures made their way around the gardens, from cockroaches to tarantulas to butterflies and bees. There were also cases upon cases of dead bugs on display. For those squeamish around anything with more than four legs, there were also exotic birds such as cockatoos and reptiles like snakes and monitors available for interaction with guests.

The Oddities

There are some things at the Insect Festival you may not see anywhere else. Vendors carried everything from bug jewelry to dead bats to crows' feet to crocodile skulls. Visitors also got the chance to eat worms with flavored seasoning. Seven-year-old Ariana Diaz tried a salsa-flavored one and immediately declared it “good” before deciding to go back for a garlic one, which she said was even better.

The Presentations

There was a lot more than insects for visitors to see. “Friday” is a 9-year-old retired dog with the San Diego County Department of Agriculture. Her job was to sniff packages to help find all fruit coming into California from other places. 

Preventing shipped fruit from finding its way to its recipient helps avoid potential fruit fly infestation. Friday gave a demonstration where she sniffed out two boxes of fruit in a pile of boxes containing other types of food. There was also an animal show that features larger insect predators such as the Fennec Fox and the Opossum.    

The Conservation Efforts

The common theme found throughout the festival is one of conservation. Organizations such as the San Diego County Department of Agriculture and the Escondido-based conservation organization Eco Vivarium were on hand to help educate guests about the importance of insects and reptiles to a thriving ecosystem

“It’s important to maintain a balance between species,” said Danielle Kasa, who works with Eco Vivarium to help people understand the importance of reptiles to a thriving ecosystem. 

“People have a stigma about reptiles; they might kill a rattlesnake when they see one, but rattlesnakes are really important because they eat other animals to help maintain that balance.

“Things like [the festival] help educate people about reptiles—to just go ahead and leave them alone and re-connect everything back to nature.”