Fork It Over, But Be Picky

 

You can’t give away all your money to every conservation organization that comes floating down the polluted stream, but you can give away a little. Be picky, and choosy.

Giving a little something to a favorite conservation charity is as sure a sign as I know that you have finally grown up. Kids don’t do it. I know some kids forty-five years old.

When times were a little more flush out here on Baker’s Branch, and I was working five different salaried jobs, and sleeping four hours an evening (really), I gave yearly to the Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, and The National Rifle Association. Yes, the NRA: It works to conserve gun owners.

I had organizational magazines piled ten feet high all over the house, and I read them when I wasn’t sleeping; sometimes when I was. I felt strongly by most of the issues favored by all of those organizations. I still do.

As time went by, and I began to rely more and more on my teacher’s retirement (holy mackerel) to fund the operation out here on the Branch, I began paring back slowly but surely on my memberships, judging the dropping of each carefully and judiciously. Then, too, unexpected family obligations began to intrude on my political leanings as they often do on all of us.

If the political party now carrying the banner of “progressiveness” in this country manages to outlaw hooks, rods, and reels because they hurt fish lips, Conrad will still be able to build fish weirs, traps, and woven tree root nets that the government will never find. But if they finally succeed in banning guns and bullets, Conrad will be reduced to throwing rocks at deer in order to secure one of the finest sources of protein God ever created.

Here’s Conrad’s bottom line: Without a gun, or bullets, I will not be able to hunt ducks, deer, squirrels, or rabbits, or any of another half-dozen fine eating game animals promoted by various sundry conservation organizations. NRA, here I am. I know the wolf is at my door. I see him and hear his howls every night on TV. Take my annual membership fee, and save my guns, and a way of life my father, grandfathers, and constitution gave me.

This past Sunday in the Tulsa World was an article about a new conservation group in the sate called the Oklahoma River Warriors. Their stated goal is to clean up trashy riversides close to their own communities. It’s easy to do, and involves practically no money at all, and no membership dues were indicated.

Time is worth money, right? I believe it.

What you need, apparently, is a couple of trash bags, time, a friend to help hold off the riverside homeless ne’er do wells (now part of the environment), and a heart to tackle an immense and very personal problem: Trash. Trash negatively affects the environment and all of the animals and birds that make up its components.

Can you spend a little time on something you believe in and not expect either a magazine or an annual free calendar as partial payment? You must answer that.

Could Sand Springs and Mannford use some River Warriors, as well? Do Boy Scout, Girl Scout, Campfire Girls, and other civic minded organizations need newsworthy local projects to affect their communities in a positive way? Do the River Warriors have a website?

Do you know the answer to any of these questions?

Every hunter and fisherman should never forget that a portion of their money spent on guns, bullets, and fishing tackle has since 1937 been taxed by the Pitman-Robertson Act to fund wildlife conservation in a hundred different ways, including the establishment of game and bird refuges all over the nation.

The Oklahoma Wildlife Department is totally funded by the purchase of state hunting and fishing licenses with no outside legislative revenues allotted to them. Think about that for a moment. All that they do, from license fees only.

Would it help to ask your local legislative representative to ask for a license increase? Even if you are not a hunter or fisherman, but have an interest in Oklahoma fish and wildlife, you could help the program by buying either a hunting or fishing license you might never use. Fish, game, and the environment need the help.

When the “happy days are here again” out here on the Branch, I’ll pick up, one by one, some of my former wildlife charities. I will be picky, and choosy. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty of trash bags, and more time than I thought I ever would have.

Copyright © 2015 Conrad M. Vollertsen