Conservation Importance
Sustainable Food
- Hunting provides a way to attain locally-sourced natural and environmentally-sustainable meat
- Find numerous recipe videos here
Healthy Ecosystems
- Hunting is an effective tool to manage wildlife populations, such as deer, that can become overabundant and over-browse plants to the point where other wildlife lose critical habitat or agricultural crops are decimated
- Hunting helps manage wildlife populations to reduce risk of wildlife disease transmission, such as Chronic Wasting Disease, that can have major impacts on the long-term survival of wildlife
Funding Conservation
Revenue from Illinois hunting licenses, stamps and permits is vital to sustaining match funding from the USFWS, as shown below. With less revenue, the less overall funding IDNR can receive for improving resources for hunters and conservation actions for wildlife.
Economic Benefits
Research
The Outdoor Illinois Journal has short articles about the past and ongoing research projects in Illinois