mayor_s_monarch_pledge_2024The City of Fort Atkinson took the Mayor's Monarch Pledge starting in 2022 and continues to commit to action items to support Monarch butterfly populations in the City of Fort Atkinson and beyond.

Action Items Committed for 2025 

Communications and Convening▸

  • Issue a proclamation to raise awareness about the decline of the monarch butterfly and the species’ need for habitat. This proclamation must incorporate a focus on monarch conservation.
  • Launch or maintain a public communication effort to encourage residents to plant monarch gardens at their homes or in their neighborhoods. (If you have community members who speak a language other than English, we encourage you to also communicate in that language; Champion Pledges must communicate in that language.)
  • Engage with city parks and recreation, public works, sustainability, and other relevant staff to identify opportunities to revise and maintain mowing programs and milkweed / native nectar plant planting programs.

Program and Demonstration Gardens▸

  • Plant or maintain a monarch and pollinator-friendly demonstration garden at City Hall or another prominent or culturally significant community location.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

The Monarch Butterfly in North America

The monarch butterfly is among the most recognized, studied, and loved of all of North America’s insects. Children study monarchs in school. Researchers and citizen scientists track their migration and breeding. Conservationists and government agencies are concerned about threats to breeding, migration, and wintering habitats.

erin-minuskin-Pw7qpVN9h-w-unsplash - The annual migration cycle of the monarch butterfly has been described as the most spectacular in the insect world, an “endangered natural phenomenon”. This species and its migration are dependent upon conservation of habitats in all three North American countries: Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Awareness of the monarch butterfly’s life cycle and habitat requirements is essential for their survival and an important step in the conservation of this animal. Many government agencies, organizations, and individuals across North America are working on projects to conserve monarch habitats and their migration.

(source: USDA.gov)

(Photo By Erin-Minuskin-Unsplash)