Majestic View Nature Center Encourages Continuing Efforts
By Maria VanderKolk, arvada.org
The City’s Majestic View Nature Center (MVNC) helped Arvada become one of only three Colorado cities — Arvada, Denver, and Lafayette — in 2017 to participate in the tri-national Mayor’s Monarch Pledge.
The Mayor’s Monarch Pledge is an initiative of the National Wildlife Federation to encourage mayors (or the principal leader of any city, town, county or HOA) to promote monarch butterfly conservation. Monarch butterflies are important pollinators as well as an iconic species; their population has declined by 90% in the last 20 years. Cities that took the Pledge were asked to complete at least three out of 25 possible actions to help monarch populations that stretch across the continent from Canada to Mexico.
Arvada Mayor Marc Williams signed the Pledge in December 2016 with the goal of completing at least eight of the 25 actions by the end of 2017. Arvada and MVNC completed 13 actions, including:
- Launching a public information campaign about Monarchs and milkweed biology through presentations and videos.
- Planting hundreds of milkweed seeds and plants in coordination with community and school gardens.
- Organizing a Monarch Butterfly Festival that drew in over 200 people for games, crafts, and free milkweed seeds.
As 2017 draws to a close, MVNC is determined to continue the Monarch efforts into 2018. In September they formed a partnership with Liz Goehring, a local Monarch science advocate who started the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project at the Monarch Festival. She is one of many butterfly enthusiasts who wish to encourage citizen engagement and training, helping Arvadans to become Monarch Warriors.
Goehring is holding a training session on May 12, 2018 for individuals and families who want to help with the Arvada Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. Register for this, or any other public program at Majestic View Nature Center at Arvada.org/public-classes.
For more information about the Mayor’s Monarch pledge in Arvada CO, stop by the Nature Center or see arvada.org/nature.
Ed. Note: For our North Carolina readers, the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge has been taken (to date) by four NC location: Brevard, Charlotte, Concord, and Matthews.
