The Challenge

Kids of all ages have an innate interest in wild things and the outdoors. The challenge for adults is how to stimulate that interest.

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Although restrictions on travel have been relaxed a bit since the first week of May, Covid-19 continues to rock our world. We have been concerned for our grandchildren and their parents, not just because of the disease, but also the potential boredom and the constant threat of losing them to banal TV programs.

My wife came up with a clever idea that we implemented on May 1^st. A week prior, we held a family video meeting and laid out the rules for a challenging game—how many naturally wild animals can you find and identify in the month of May? There were financial incentives of course—with 19 grandchildren we couldn’t make it huge, but for most of the kids, any source of income is appreciated.

Here are the rules—animals must be wild (no zoos, pets, farm animals etc.), they must be alive (no roadkill or bugs on the car’s grill), they must be identified to species (not duck, but mallard or green-winged teal). To claim an animal, the child has to SEE it, but they can have help identifying it. We do not allow males and females to be counted separately although we did decide that a caterpillar and moth or butterfly of the same species could count twice since the life stages are so different. Finally, teamwork was encouraged.

We also split our grandkids into two groups; a junior division and a senior division. Nine-year-olds or older in 2020 would be in the senior group, the others would be in the junior division. Each group would have a winner, and the winners would get $25. Anyone else could also claim a cash prize of $5 by getting at least 100 species on their list.

A week after the contest started, we had another family video meeting to see how things were going. I came away with the sense that there was a lack of enthusiasm for the challenge on the part of many of the grandkids. I was pleased to find out I was wrong several days later when some of us met at Harriman State Park to celebrate my wife’s birthday.

While at the park, the kids began to proudly share their lists with us. In just nine days, several had lists totaling over 60 species. At Harriman, I played spotter with the spotting scope and the kids would line up to see each new bird I could find. By the end of the day, the kids had added up to 28 species to their totals.

I am now confident that the majority of those playing (three are too young) are taking the challenge seriously. Yes, the money is a huge motivator—even a little money can motivate a child. However, even the older kids are really engaged. My oldest grandson made me proud when he told me that he had now identified eight different species of swallows and, with the help of an App on his mom’s phone has been able to identify more insects than anyone else. His count when he left was 92 species in 9 days.

I hope that our challenge will do more than entertain our grandchildren for a month. I hope that one or two of them will, because of this and fine parenting at home, develop into true naturalists. I can tell already that the activity has made all of them at least a little more observant of the wonderful world around them.

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Help Idaho Wildlife

When we traveled across the state in October 2017, most of the vehicles we saw using the wildlife management areas did not have wildlife plates. Buying wildlife plates is a great way for non-hunters and hunters alike to support wildlife-based recreation like birding.

C'mon folks, let's help Idaho's wildlife by proudly buying and displaying a wildlife license plate on each of our vehicles! 

See below for information on Idaho plates. Most states have wildlife plates so if you live outside Idaho, check with your state's wildlife department or vehicle licensing division for availability of state wildlife plates where you live. 

And tell them that you heard about it from Nature-track.com!

Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.