DNR: 'Chickadee Checkoff' tax donations to wildlife fall

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- The Department of Natural Resources is urging Minnesotans to help nongame wildlife by donating to the Wildlife Checkoff Fund on their state tax forms.

Nongame Wildlife Program supervisor Carrol Henderson says the tough economy has affected their budget. Donations are down more than 10 percent. Every year, he says, the number of donors decreases, with fewer than one in 35 households remembering wildlife at tax time.

The tax deductible, voluntary donations to what's sometimes called the "Chickadee Checkoff" fund more than 80 conservation projects. They include: monitoring loon populations; surveys of wood turtles, ospreys, rattlesnakes and dragonflies; frog and toad research; monitoring of heron rookeries; and protection and management of important habitat for bald eagles, piping plovers, peregrine falcons and other wildlife at risk.

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(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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