Ada Soil & Water Conservation District’s Treasure Valley Pollinator Project

The Ada Soil & Water Conservation District’s Treasure Valley Pollinator Project (TVPP) is a program that can help increase the livability of your community for its residents. The goal of the TVPP is to educate, empower, and engage participants in the stewardship of critical pollinator habitat from their own yards. In the process, yards become more welcoming, beautified, and deeply loved. The stewardship of pollinator habitat is critically important in the Treasure Valley in light of the increasingly rapid development of our open spaces. The TVPP illuminates the very real, positive impact that individuals have on their local ecosystems and food webs.

There are 3 main components to the TVPP-

1. Participants choose from 4 mixes of flowers and grasses designed to attract a variety of pollinators like bees, butterflies, and beetles.
2. Participants gain access to FREE workshops and field days held throughout the year.
3. Participants receive four short surveys to complete that helps us monitor their successes.

We’re pleased to announce that Mayor McLean has again signed the National Wildlife Federation’s Mayor’s Monarch Pledge for 2023, which is a program committed to working with local city governments nationwide to create habitat for the monarch butterfly and other imperiled pollinator species. The monarch butterfly, Idaho’s state insect, is an iconic species whose eastern populations have declined by 90% and western populations by 99% in recent years. The Treasure Valley saw a promising increase in monarch sightings in 2022, and we hope for that trend to continue. But we need to do much more than just hope. We must work together. What can the Collister Neighborhood Association do to help in this effort? One of the action items in the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge is the commitment to create awareness and gather information from Boise neighborhoods, homeowners, and businesses about how they can make a difference in their community for the benefit of monarchs, pollinators, and all wildlife. A very important aspect of seeing these goals reached is community-based science. We need the eyes of the local population open to what is happening in their outdoor spaces and the natural areas around them.

➢ Are you seeing monarch butterflies (or other pollinators)in your area?
➢ Do you have pesticide-free milkweed growing in backyards or somewhere else in your neighborhood association boundaries? (if you need help with identification of milkweed species native to this area, please contact us)Whether in a backyard, business landscape, or community space, we’d like to know about it.  Please report monarch sightings and plantings to the websites listed in the links section at the end of this message. Finally, is your neighborhood association interested in doing more to support monarchs and other pollinators? Some of the actions that neighborhood associations and residents can take are:

1. Maintain, improve, enlarge, or create monarch-safe habitat by planting milkweed and other pollinator-friendly plants.
2. Reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides in private yards or in any community space.
3. Re-examine mowing schedules to make sure that important nectar sources are not cut down just when monarchs (and bees) need it most.

Learn more about the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge. Officially certify your space as friendly habitat to wildlife (this could be *private homeowner
gardens or public space within your neighborhood association):

Certify your garden with Homegrown National Park
Create a Monarch Waystation
Certify your garden with the National Wildlife FederationTo report monarch habitat and monarch sightings:
iNaturalist
Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper
Journey North

Please join the Facebook group: Idaho Friends of Monarchs. Monarch sightings are also
reported here, along with other facts, statistics, and pollinator gardening tips.
Here is the Boise specific City Nature Challenge page.If you have any questions about the pledge, about monarch butterflies or about creating safe habitat, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

With gratitude,
Kristin Gnojewski and Alene HortinKristin Gnojewski
Community Volunteer Specialist
Parks and Recreation Department
Office: (208)608-7609

cityofboise.org

Creating a city for everyone.

Alene Hortin
Library Asst
Boise Public Library
Office: (208)972-8339

 

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