Butterfly surveys at Rice Creek Field Station were initiated in 1996 by Peter G. Weber, then a professor in the Department of Biology at SUNY Oswego. Pete was assisted by his son, Nicholas F. Weber, and by Michael Holy, science teacher at Hannibal High School and an alumnus of SUNY Oswego. Mike has continued this monitoring effort since Peter's retirement and move to Colorado in 2009.
Monitoring consists of counting each butterfly encountered within 5 meters on either side of up to 8 permanent transects along the trails and in the open fields and meadows at the Field Station. The total length of transects sampled exceeds 5,500 meters.