P.E.I. man makes money selling moths
Bill Oehlke has taken a skill his father taught him and turned it into an unusual business venture.
The retired teacher has been raising and selling moth eggs and cocoons for 20 years.
The 67-year-old sells the moth eggs and cocoons to about 50 buyers across Canada.
"They're beautiful. The caterpillars are also, I find them beautiful. Some people find that strange, but I enjoy them," said Oehlke.
To protect the caterpillars he raises, Oehkle places big white sleeves over sapling trees. This year he has covered 150 trees and has raised about 1,200 caterpillars.
The caterpillars are protected inside the sleeves until they spin the cocoons. They remain inside for about five weeks.
Once the moths hatch, Oehlke also harvests the cocoons. He keeps any unhatched cocoons he doesn't sell in cold storage so they don't hatch prematurely over the winter.
Oehlke will sell those cocoons next spring, but will keep a few dozen for next year's breeding stock.
"Some people, the things that they collect I think are crazy and I know, I appreciate the fact that they think the things that I do are crazy too," said Oehlke.
"You know with the internet the whole world's your audience and your market. So if 1 in 1000 people is interested in moths and butterflies, well that's a lot of people."
Oehkle sells his moth eggs and cocoons to researchers, museums and parents homeschooling their kids.
Oehkle says the business has been good for his family, helping send his children through university.
"It helped pay their tuition and room and board."
After learning the craft from his father, Oehlke has now passed his moth obsession onto his daughter, Lindsay Oehlke.
The owner and designer of a business called Morph, Lindsay makes jewelry from the wings of dead moths her father finds.
"He said 'well what do you want them for?' And I said I'd like to make earrings out of them, and he said well that's a little bit strange. And I said dad, you breed moths. That's a little bit strange," she says with a smile.
