The National Wildlife Foundation gave the Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park a $125,000 grant to undertake, what could be, the largest urban monarch butterfly project in the nation. 

“Over the next 18 months we will be propagating several milkweed species and a variety of nectar plants to create and/or restore 80 acres of Dallas City Park lands,” TDG Executive Director Dick Davis told The Dallas Morning News.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings was the first Texas mayor to sign up for the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge.

The partnership with Dallas Park and Recreation is what makes this project one of the biggest, Davis told the Morning News.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings was the first Texas mayor to sign up for the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge, a NWF program encouraging local governments to take action in monarch conservation efforts, according to the newspaper. 

TDG will also be adding three monarch gardens in the entrance of Dallas City Hall, at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in downtown, and of course, at TDG, thanks to a different grant from the Texas Soil and Water Conservation Districts.

TDG attracts monarchs from both northern and southern migrations, with the most flocking in during the State Fair of Texas.

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