Community Profile

Pledge Status

Did Not Report

Pledge Date

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Program Year

2021

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Action Item Report

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City of Fergus Falls

Fergus Falls, MN

Ben Schierer

Mayor

Pledge Summary

Fergus Falls is a city in western Minnesota with a population of approximately 14,500 people and is the Otter Tail County seat. The city is located in North America's grassland biome, on the eastern edge of the tallgrass prairie, and within the prairie pothole region, a key location for migrating, nectaring, and breeding monarch butterflies. The city grew adjacent to the Otter Tail River and has 27 beautiful parks along with six different trail systems and two community vegetable gardens. In addition, it is home to the Fergus Falls Wetland Management District and the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center, part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mayor Ben Schierer committed to saving the monarch butterfly and other pollinators by originally signing the Mayors Monarch Pledge in 2017 and each year since then. He looks forward to engaging residents and partners in creating more pollinator habitat throughout the city. Additional partners include the Friends of the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center, Wildlife Forever, United Prairie Foundation and the city's Natural Resources Committee and Human Rights Commission. Fergus Falls is working towards designation as the first Prairie City USA through Wildlife Forever in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is working to develop and invite other cities to earn this recognition. It also earned a 2019 Pollinator Friendly Community Award from the Pollinator Friendly Alliance in Stillwater, Minnesota.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2021

Communications and Convening

  • 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 community garden groups and urge them to plant native milkweeds and nectar-producing plants.
  • 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.
  • Engage with gardening leaders and partners (e.g., Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, Nature Centers, Native Plant Society Chapters , other long-standing and influential community leaders) to support monarch butterfly conservation.
  • Engage with developers, planners, landscape architects, and other community leaders and organizers engaged in planning processes to identify opportunities to create monarch habitat.
  • Create a community-driven educational conservation strategy, initiative, or practice that focuses on and benefits local, underserved residents.
  • Create a community art project to enhance and promote monarch and pollinator conservation as well as cultural awareness and recognition.
  • 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.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Host or support a native seed or plant sale, giveaway or swap.
  • Facilitate or support a milkweed seed collection and propagation effort.
  • Plant or maintain a monarch and pollinator-friendly demonstration garden at City Hall or another prominent or culturally significant community location.
  • Launch or maintain an outdoor education program(s) (e.g., at schools, after-school programs, community centers and groups) that builds awareness and creates habitat by engaging students, educators, and the community in planting native milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants (i.e., National Wildlife Federation’s Schoolyard Habitats program and Monarch Mission curriculum).
  • Earn or maintain recognition for being a wildlife-friendly city by participating in other wildlife and habitat conservation efforts (i.e., National Wildlife Federation’s Community Wildlife Habitat program).
  • Initiate or support community science (or citizen science) efforts that help monitor monarch migration and health.
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

Systems Change

  • Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.
  • Remove milkweed from the list of noxious plants in city weed / landscaping ordinances (if applicable).
  • Change weed or mowing ordinances to allow for native prairie and plant habitats.
  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.
  • Launch, expand, or continue an effort to change municipal planting ordinances and practices to include more native milkweed and native nectar producing plants at city properties.
  • Integrate monarch butterfly conservation into the city’s Park Master Plan, Sustainability Plan, Climate Resiliency Plan or other city plans.