Fewer Iowans donating to Chickadee Checkoff, meaning less money for wildlife diversity efforts

Donations to Iowa's Fish/Wildlife fund, informally called the Chickadee Checkoff, fell nearly 15 percent last year but have been gradually shrinking since the fund was created in the early 1980s.

Study and support for Iowa’s nongame animals, including songbirds, turtles, frogs, owls and salamanders, is needed more than ever as many species decline in numbers, mostly because of lost habitat.

North America has lost nearly 30 percent of its birds — about 3 million — since the 1970s, according to a 2019 article in the journal Science.

“There is a lot of vulnerable wildlife we still don’t have a good feel for how they are doing,” said Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife diversity biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

When the Iowa Legislature created the Chickadee Checkoff in 1982, Iowans were eager to check that box on their state income tax forms, Shepherd said. That year, Iowans donated $238,477 — which would be more than $700,000 today.

Over the years, more checkoff programs were added for taxpayers to make donations to other causes — including the Iowa State Fair Foundation; Firefighters Preparedness Fund and Veterans Trust Fund; and Child Abuse Prevention. These checkoffs are listed in contribution line 57, under Step 9, on the Iowa 1040 individual income tax form.

But more than 90 percent of Iowans file their individual income taxes online, the Iowa Department of Revenue reported, and it may be harder to find the checkoff line through online programs. Of online filers in Iowa, 65 percent hire a tax preparer, who isn’t likely to ask whether taxpayers want to donate through the checkoff, Shepherd said.

“They are trying to help people get through this process most people don’t enjoy as quickly as possible,” she said.

Iowans who want to donate through the checkoff should tell their tax preparer in advance. But if they forget, Iowa now has an online site where people can make donations directly to the Wildlife Diversity Program.

The program’s donors have steadily declined in number over the years from nearly 13,000 in 2003, the first year the Iowa DNR tracked the number of donors, to 6,269 for tax year 2021.

Those donors were extra generous in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made outdoor spaces some of the only safe areas for recreation and socializing. About 7,200 donors gave an average $24 donation that year, which resulted in $175,000 for the Wildlife Diversity Program.

Average donation amounts were about the same in 2021, but there were 1,000 fewer donors. Just under $150,000 was raised.

The Chickadee Checkoff was the first dedicated state funding to the Wildlife Diversity Program, which also gets half of the revenue from sales of natural resources license plates. The Iowa DNR also uses some hunting and fishing license fees to support nongame animals.

Iowa’s five Wildlife Diversity program staff members work with land managers to make sure they are incorporating practices that support nongame animals. Staff lead surveys of bald eagles, frogs and toads and the rusty patched bumblebee to see how these species continue to fare in Iowa.

Program staff put up nesting boxes for barn owls, endangered in Iowa, and do educational programming, among other activities.

If the Wildlife Diversity program had more money, there could be more staff spread around the state rather than be based only in Boone; it could work with cities to make them more friendly to birds and butterflies; and update publications, some of which haven’t been refreshed since the early 1990s, Shepherd said.

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