For Immediate Release
January 26, 2016
Contact: Leif Olson
Associate Planner
Sustainability & Resilience
479-575-8269
lolson@fayetteville-ar.gov
Fayetteville Participants Join Mayor Lioneld Jordan to Help Save the Monarch Butterfly
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Mayor Lioneld Jordan took the National Wildlife Federation’s Mayors’ Monarch Pledge in November 2015; as part of the Leadership Circle, the Mayor has pledged to take eight or more specific actions to help the monarch and other pollinators.
Monarch butterflies are found across the United States and numbered some 1 billion in 1996. Their numbers have declined by approximately 90 percent since 1996 as a result of numerous threats. One third of the monarch’s summer breeding habitat has been destroyed, largely in the Midwestern United States. Expansion of row crop agriculture and, to a lesser extent, development, has destroyed 90 percent of our nation’s native grassland ecosystems, on which monarchs depend. Milkweed, the only host plant for monarch caterpillars, has declined in the U.S. due to overuse of herbicides by commercial agriculture and conventional gardening practices in suburban and urban areas.
Through the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge, municipalities have committed to creating habitats and educating citizens on ways they can make a difference to help save the monarch butterfly. Today, the City of Fayetteville, in partnership with the National Wildlife Federation, held a Monarch Butterfly Habitat Workshop in the Walker Room of the Fayetteville Public Library. Grace Barnett, Monarch Outreach Specialist with the National Wildlife Federation, facilitated the workshop focusing on local actions that can be taken to create and enhance monarch butterfly habitat within the community.
Participants in the workshop included City staff from Parks and Recreation Department, Urban Forestry Division, and Sustainability Department; City volunteer committee members; Fayetteville Public School District leaders; University of Arkansas faculty; Botanical Garden of the Ozarks staff; Northwest Arkansas Land Trust representatives; Beaver Water District staff; landscape architects; and master gardeners. These participants will continue to develop action steps and educational programs to help save the monarch butterfly.
The City’s Parks and Recreation Department will increase milkweed plantings in the Downtown Square gardens, Wilson, Gulley, Bryce Davis, and Walker Parks. Milkweed seeds will be sown along City trails and at Callie’s Prairie located at Lake Fayetteville. The department is currently growing milkweed seedlings which will be given away to the public for free at a Farmers Market in June and is working with Fayetteville Public Schools to provide starter plants for all school gardens in late spring.
Background information on the monarch butterfly decline and the role of the National Wildlife Foundation as advocates for actions that improve monarch butterfly habitat can be found here: http://www.nwf.org/Pollinators/Monarch.aspx.
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