Two student organizations raise $1,600 for conservation efforts
Two SIUE organizations, the Trap and Skeet Club and the Student Wildlife and Conservation Club, raised roughly $1,600 at a recent fundraising banquet for conservation efforts.
Colton Nelson, president of the SIUE Trap and Skeet Club, said the “immediate” significance of raising funds is that habitat is “disappearing statewide.”
“The diminishing funds being allocated to state parks and property where the public can hunt hurts the ability for new or old hunters to get out and connect with nature,” Nelson said. “This also hurts the motivation for new individuals to get out and fall in love with hunting. The largest contributors to habitat efforts are the hunters themselves. When they run out so does the monetary support to the lands.”
Nelson worked with Andrew Limmer, the Illinois Regional Director of the National Wild Turkey Foundation (NWTF), Neil Waters of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and associate dean Bill Retzlaff, over the summer to come up with the idea of putting on a banquet.
“We threw around the idea of a sportsmen’s banquet and the positives which have come out of the banquets put on by other students from different universities around the state,” Nelson said. “Specifically, the biggest positive from putting on the event this year was any money raised for conservation efforts was to be matched eight-to-one by the Illinois Superfund.”
The superfund receives funding through taxes on ammunition, licenses and “other consumer products” purchased by Illinois residents, according to Nelson.
“This specific fund goes towards helping Illinois habitat in many different ways, but also can be used to match outside funds raised by different organizations,” Nelson said.
The remaining funds are used for the conservation and enhancement of “at least four million acres of crucial habitat that’s upland for wildlife habitat for game and non-game species,” according to Jamay Michael, a biology graduate student and president of Student Wildlife and Conservation Club
She said 10 percent of the funds raised go to the clubs and the rest goes to the NWTF to help regain habitats for certain species that climate change and human destruction contribute to. For example, it will give birds that migrate a specific space, according to Michael.
“Right now with the migration and the heat becoming longer or the cold becoming shorter they really don’t have a spot where they can stop for migrating periods,” Michael said. “And this will help them, give them a specific land or a specific area that they like to over winter or over summer.”
Nelson said the Trap and Skeet Club will use the funds it received to purchase shooting vests for its members.
“These act as our jerseys when we are out competing or out shooting at the area Gun Clubs like Maryville Town and Country Gun Club just down the road from campus,” Nelson said.
The fundraiser was held Nov. 9 at the conference center in the Morris University Center.
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