Conservation

Show Your Monarch Love When You Drive

New license plates support these incredible migrating butterflies.

There’s no more beautiful or noticeable way to show your love for Texas wildlife than to display conservation license plates on your vehicle. The newest design features that incredible migrating butterfly, the monarch. 

“The monarch is one of nature’s great migration stories,” says John Davis, TPWD’s Wildlife Diversity director. “This species migrates through Texas from Mexico in the spring, making its way to the northern extremes of the U.S. and into Canada, then reverses that feat in the fall to overwinter in Mexico. This great migratory story is in jeopardy; the overwintering population experienced steep declines in the last decade.”'

The public voted on the winning design: one large monarch and three smaller ones that seem poised to fly off the plate, as if starting their famous spring migration. Funds raised help conserve monarchs and other native Texas, nongame, at-risk species.

“We must promote initiatives that support the monarch and its conservation,” says Rebeca Quiñonez-Piñón of the National Wildlife Federation. “We are proud to join the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in the fight to preserve the iconic monarch butterfly and bring awareness to the dangers it is currently facing.”

The TPWD Conservation License Plate Program has raised around $10 million in the last 21 years for wildlife and habitat conservation in Texas. Other plate designs include a horned lizard, largemouth bass, hummingbird, white-tailed deer, bluebonnet and desert bighorn sheep. All TPWD conservation specialty plates cost $30 a year, with $22 going to TPWD to support various programs and efforts. Plates can be purchased for vehicles, RVs/travel trailers, trailers and motorcycles.

To buy a monarch plate or for more information on TPWD’s conservation licenses plates, visit www.conservationplate.org.