Q. Now is the time for Minnesota residents to contribute to the Department of Natural Resources' Nongame Wildlife Checkoff Fund. What is this money used for and how does it help wildlife?
A. Donations made to this fund are used by the DNR's Nongame Wildlife Program for a number of comprehensive statewide efforts to help protect and manage the state's "nongame" wildlife species. These species include more than 800 kinds of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, butterflies and select invertebrates that are not traditionally hunted or harvested.
Funds are also used to implement conservation efforts for threatened and endangered species; to acquire land and easements to protect habitat, manage prairies, forests and wetlands and create buffer zones along lakeshores; to support educational programs; and to assist private landowners and local governments with habitat management.
The specific species that have benefited from these efforts to date are loons, bald eagles, trumpeter swans, peregrine falcons, eastern bluebirds, Blanding's turtles, bats, timber rattlesnakes, great blue herons and other colonial water birds like egrets and grebes.
Contribute to the Nongame Wildlife Checkoff Fund on your 2010 Minnesota tax form, or go online at www.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/nongame/
ADVERTISEMENT
checkoff.html.
-- Carrol Henderson, DNR Nongame Wildlife Program supervisor
