Fewer Iowans are donating money to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Fund on their tax returns to help wildlife conservation efforts. Last year, about 58-hundred people checked the box for the so-called Chickadee Check-off, which is only about four-tenths of one percent of Iowa’s taxpayers. Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Diversity Program, says that check-off is the program’s only source of funding.
“The Chickadee Check-off was placed on the tax form in 1982, so certainly things have changed a lot.” She says the check-off funds are vital to the agency’s work to help preserve some of Iowa’s most vulnerable species.
A few recent projects that have been supported by the check-off include investigating the nesting success of bald eagles, and determining the status of the endangered Poweshiek skippering butterfly.
The number of donors to the check-off has dropped by 50-percent in the past 20 years. Last year, it bought in almost 147-thousand dollars, a decline of about eight-thousand dollars from the year before. Iowans can donate as little as a dollar on their state tax form.
Shepherd notes, 100-percent of donations to the check-off go directly to the program — there are no administrative fees. Also, you don’t have to donate via the tax form. You can donate directly on the D-N-R’s website: Find out more online at www.programs.iowadnr.gov/donations.
