Community Profile

City of College Station

College Station, TX

John Nichols

Mayor

Pledge Summary

Our city's vision is deeply intertwined with the core values and mission of the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge. We are committed to re-engaging our community in meaningful efforts to protect monarch butterflies and other native pollinators in College Station, Texas, and beyond. Local conservation leaders introduced this initiative to Mayor John Nichols and the City Council, who recognized its potential to inspire informed, grassroots action throughout College Station. Renewing our commitment to the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge, signed initially by Nancy Barry Jan. 28th 2016, not only reinforces our collective vision but also advances key objectives in our Comprehensive Plan—specifically, the creation, stewardship, and management of resilient, sustainable, and vibrant natural spaces and unique habitats shared by monarchs, local wildlife, and the communities who enjoy them. In this process, we forge enduring partnerships that benefit both our community and the natural world. College Station has a strong legacy of conservation leadership. In 2022, we established the Parks and Recreation, Conservation Advisory Group to address a diverse array of environmental concerns and advance community projects of over 100 active members and volunteers made up from The Brazos Valley Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalist, The Post Oak Chapter for the Native Plant Society of Texas, Rio Brazos Audubon Society, Texas AgriLife, The Texas Master Gardeners, Texas A&M Forest Service, Bat Conservation International, faculty and students from Texas A&M. Our city became a Mayor’s Monarch Pledge City in 2017, has participated in the Tree City USA program for over 30 years, and launched the Lights Out! College Station campaign in August 2023 to protect migrating and resident night-flying wildlife, and earned official Bird City Texas status from TPWD and Texas Audubon in January 2025. Renewing our participation in the Monarch Pledge Program builds on these achievements, serving as an umbrella initiative to mobilize additional conservation projects, strengthen community engagement, and address the specific needs of our declining monarch butterfly populations. Our Bird City Team includes a dynamic native plant group devoted to monarch conservation, habitat creation, education, and fostering community connections, making this next step a natural progression for College Station. The City of College Station has repeatedly demonstrated its dedication to preserving monarchs and native pollinators. Since 2016, we have hosted an annual Monarch Festival each March, engaged the public in community science projects, native plant sales, and established expansive pollinator habitats throughout our parks. We have also planted, cared for, and distributed thousands of packets of native plant seeds at Nature Center and conservation events, as well as at the Nature Center’s welcome desk from our demonstration gardens. Our efforts also include numerous invasive plant removal days, active community science projects, educating the A&M landscape architecture school as well as many HOAs, dozens of educational events/outreaches and engagements in the community, planting hundreds of pollinator-friendly trees, and managing the Butterflies on the Brazos webpage to promote pollinator awareness and community involvement. The community’s enthusiasm for monarchs drives our ongoing commitment to their conservation. In 2025, the City of College Station opened a new trail at Lick Creek Park called “Butterfly Alley,” featuring engaging, TEKS-aligned educational graphics that explore monarch biology, current challenges, and conservation action steps. These displays are popular with school groups and park visitors alike. College Station is a 125,000+ residents and hosts the largest student body in the country, over 85,000 college students, and features 55 parks, 600 acres of protected greenways, and 8 miles of multi-use trails. At the heart of our park system is Lick Creek Park—a 523-acre nature preserve supporting rare and declining pollinator species, including the monarch butterfly. More than 2,800 species of plants, fungi, and animals have been documented there year-round, with populations closely monitored by both professional and community researchers. These efforts inspire the next generation of conservation leaders.

Community Spotlight

Mayor Monarch Pledge College Station March 26 2026

The City of College Station Parks and Recreation Team, The Conservation Advisory Group, Rio Brazos Audubon, Keep Brazos Beautiful, and Texas Master Naturalist stood beside Mayor John Nichols to celebrate the re-signing of the Mayor's Monarch Pledge.

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Action Items Committed for 2026

Communications and Convening ▸

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.
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 Homeowners Associations (HOAs), Community Associations or neighborhood organizations to identify opportunities to plant monarch gardens and revise maintenance and mowing programs.
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.

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.
Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.
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.
Host or support a monarch butterfly festival that is accessible to all residents in the community and promotes monarch and pollinator conservation, as well as cultural awareness and recognition.
Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

Systems Change ▸

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.
Integrate monarch butterfly conservation into the city’s Park Master Plan, Sustainability Plan, Climate Resiliency Plan or other city plans.
Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.
Launch, expand, or continue one or more ordinances to reduce light pollution to benefit urban wildlife.

Past Pledge Archive

Mayor Name	Program Year	Pledge Date	Achievement
Mayor John Nichols	2026	3/27/2026		View Pledge

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Action Item Report