Throughout the Brazos County and all over the United States we have seen a decrease in Monarch Butterflies. There have been may efforts recently, to improve the population number of these beautiful butterflies. The current projects provide below help with commitment to help these butterflies and support the people who are taking time out of their day to do it. Many residents in the College Station and Bryan Area do participate in helping these butterflies, events and projects.
Monarch Butterfly Garden Initiative
https://www.bryantx.gov/monarch/
The Monarch Butterfly Garden Initiative was created in 2o16 to help restore butterflies in the College Station and Bryan area. The city plans to create eight new butterfly gardens and plant two different kinds of plants that attract these beautiful butterflies. The two plants that will be planted are nectar plants, for example Purple Coneflower and Brown Eyed Susan which is a plant that is a food plant for larvae. Their website above has more info and helpful links to get more involved in the city.
Mayor’s Monarch Pledge
https://www.nwf.org/Garden-For-Wildlife/About/National-Initiatives/Mayors-Monarch-Pledge.aspx
http://cstx.gov/index.aspx?page=4001
The National WildLife Federation and U.S. Fish and WildLife Services put together a pledge to restore more habitats for Monarch Butterflies. This campaign is to encourage government leaders to get more involved and take actions within the community to protect these species before they go extinct. This pledge can encourage the community to make a commitment to help the Monarch Butterfly species and help restore their habitat.
Project Monarch Health
http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Monarch Health is a citizen service project that help search for parasites that harm Monarch Butterflies. Volunteers go to different parts of North America and sample different parasites and monarchs to track the spread of protozoan. Their mission is to understand and research these parasites as well as learn more about Monarch butterflies. In the year of 2017 this project has sampled over 7,000 monarchs to contribute to this research. This project does except donations to help with the search. There is more information about this project and latest research above.
Monarch Butterfly and Pollinators Conservation Fund
http://www.nfwf.org/monarch/Pages/home.aspx
The Monarch Butterfly and Pollinators Conservation Fund is funding for projects to continue their contribution to helping protect the Monarch Butterflies. Since 2015 this fund has provided grants to 70 projects to help restore Monarch habitats and coordinating strategies. Within this fund there are two different types of grants: Habitat Improvement and Outreach and Organization Coordination. These two grants help with the overall improvement and help set a priority to restore Monarch Butterflies.