Udate 3/14/11
The April 1, 2011 deadline for advertising in the book has some flexibility. If you’re interested, all the contact information is in the post below.
If you live, work, fish and hunt somewhere in the Fox Valley, please take the time to look this over, along with the associated links. They are putting together a coffee-table style book that will have a run of 25,000 copies and will be distributed through out the Fox Valley. They have an April 1, 2011 deadline for sponsorship and advertising opportunities for the book. Seems worth it if you have a business, club or group that is looking for a new advertising venue.
On February 1st a note came up on Facebook from The Conservation Foundation:
A Citizen’s Guide to Preserving the Fox River
We are starting a new education and outreach effort to preserve the beautiful Fox River: “A Citizen’s Guide to Preserving the Fox River”
Our overall goal with this project is to engage more local residents in protecting their Fox River. This is a new project that will be kept alive through the ongoing work of The Conservation Foundation and the Fox River Ecosystem Partnership. We will increase the overall awareness of the Fox River in the lives of the people who need it, use it, and rely on it for their quality of life; and inspire residents to “take action” by making changes to their lives and properties that will benefit the Fox River.
For the past 5 years I have done virtually nothing regarding Fox River conservation efforts. I decided when I saw this that I would get back in touch with these groups. I worked with all of them years ago when there was a big push for dam removal on the Fox. My role back then was to get the angling and hunting communities involved not only in the dam removal initiatives, but in Fox River conservation efforts in general. I’m hoping to reach out to the same fishing and hunting groups with this new project.
I got the following from Brook McDonald, President/CEO of The Conservation Foundation when I contacted him to let him know I’d be interested in helping. It helps that he is a kayaking fanatic and loves fishing rivers and creeks:
As you know, since the DNR has been sliced to hell, many of the ecosystem partnerships have gone somewhat dormant. The Fox River Ecosystem Partnership (FREP) wants to remain active. The Conservation Foundation has always been involved in the FR, but mostly in the lower stretches. Frankly, we have spent the majority of the past 20 years focusing on the DuPage River in DuPage (both branches) and now working on the lower DuPage in Will County.
When this current project idea came up, it was an opportunity for both TCF and FREP to work on something together to benefit the Fox River. FREP works on a comprehensive watershed approach to the river, while this project is focused on some of the education/outreach goals in the watershed plan.
For this project, we are working directly with Becky Hoag, who is the “staff person” for FREP and she is in charge of the web site www.preservethefox.org. She’s just getting started. For the magazine, we are working with Paul and Valerie Burd from Yorkville. They do all of the local municipal magazines up and down the river. Valerie does much of the writing and layout design, and Paul does the photography and helps me with some ad sales. Dan Lobbes is organizing all of the conservation organizations and local river communities to help promote the project, in particular the web site and magazine pick up locations. We have a couple other people helping on various tasks, too.
The specific goals of this project are to increase awareness of the wonderful virtues of the river, and to get people to take some sort of action that will benefit the river, even if it’s as simple as installing a rain barrel on their downspout and hope they understand the link to that and the river. The more people know about the magazine and the web site, the more people will, hopefully, want to do something. In addition to these outcomes, we also will be building 2-3 community rain gardens in river communities and certifying a bunch of “environmentally-friendly” yards/properties through our Conservation @ Home program.
It sounds like your contacts in the media, and “hook and bullet” crowd would be beneficial. I can see links to other projects we are working on, too, on the Fox River, particularly in Kendall and LaSalle. Hopefully, this project will engage enough people that other projects will develop as a result, and breathe new life in the effort to preserve the Fox!
Brook McDonald, President/CEO
The Conservation Foundation
10S404 Knoch Knolls Road
Naperville, IL 60565
(630) 428-4500, ext. 12
bmcdonald@theconservationfoundation.org
I’ve already contacted Becky Hoag at Fox River Ecosystem Partnership and it looks like Dan Lobbes, Director of Land Preservation at TCF, is going to be the lead person on this project. I’ve worked with both of them extensively in the past on the dam removal issues on the Fox and even going back 15 years when I helped get Salt Creek Watershed Network off the ground.
Dan sent me the following with some info he was requesting. I’ll be pulling together the information I have and passing it on, I hope those that are interested that I don’t know will contact him directly:
Would you be able to put together contact information for some of the hook & bullet groups in the Fox Valley? This project covers the Fox from the Wisconsin border to the south end of Kendall County. I’m planning on sending a letter describing the project and asking for their support, whether it’s just promoting it to their membership, distributing the free magazine or actually buying a small ad or something. I’d need a person’s name, the address and if possible an email address as well.
Anything you can do would help.Dan Lobbes
Director of Land Preservation
The Conservation Foundation
10S404 Knoch Knolls Road
Naperville, IL 60565
630-553-0687 x301
dlobbes@theconservationfoundation.org
Though I know a lot of the fishing and hunting groups in the area, I don’t belong to any one group anymore. I do know they are out there and paying attention. If all you can do is help spread the word on this with the appropriate contact info, that would be great.
Sorry for being so long winded on this, but what else is new for me.
I think what they are trying to do is pretty cool. I’ve noticed in the past 5 years that there just aren’t that many people out along the river in the stretches I go to. I run into virtually no one while out fishing and wandering around. I went 2 years recently without running into a single angler while out wading, and I was going a good half dozen times a month. These are stretches where I’ve had over a hundred guys out for guiding and fishing classes, as well as talking about them endlessly for the past 15 years.
Pass this along if you can. Sometimes that’s the best you can do. Would be good to see the angling and hunting groups participate. We do have a vested interest in the health of the waters and waterways of where we fish and hunt after all.