Pleasure to support a worthy cause

This past Saturday evening, my wife and I attended the Mat-Su Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s (RMEF) annual banquet. We were invited as the guests of Nick and Robyn Cassara of Palmer. I want to express our thanks to the Cassara family for their generous invitation. The event was held at Evangelo’s Restaurant in Wasilla and, as usual, the food was great.

The Valley usually sees several different conservation organization fund-raising banquets over the course of a year. In addition to the RMEF event, there’s typically a banquet for the local chapters of the Friends of The National Rifle Association, Alaska Outdoor Council, Alaska Moose Federation and others. If you broaden your attendance range to include Anchorage, banquet events will be sponsored by the Ruffed Grouse Society, National Wild Turkey Federation, Safari Club, Trout Unlimited and other similar groups. These are all worthy causes and the money raised is funneled right back into lobbying for and making improvements to our Alaska wildlife, fisheries and habitat.

All these types of banquets generally function in a similar manner. To raise funding, there is an admission price includes the evening meal. In addition, there are usually silent auctions, a live auction, raffles, games and other money-generating activities designed to entertain as well as provide quality merchandise to the winning participant. The merchandise is donated by local businesses or individuals interested in supporting the organization’s projects and activities. Various levels of membership in the sponsoring organization are also available for purchase at these events.

The banquets are planned and accomplished by a committee of volunteer members of the particular organization and this involvement requires a large commitment of time in making various banquet arrangements and securing merchandise donations for the various fund-raising activities. Any organization’s banquet planning committee deserves a major thank you from the group and the folks attending the event.

Here are some particulars about this RMEF banquet. There were 180 folks who attended and around $19,000, after costs, was raised from the various fund-raising activities toward the RMEF projects in Alaska. If you’re like me, your disposable income available to support these various organizations is limited. How do you decide which group(s) to support? Look at the organization’s mission statement and see if it strives to accomplish things you believe in. Then, support as many organizations as you can.

The RMEF mission is stated fairly simply. It wants to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife and the habitats necessary to support these creatures. To accomplish this mission, RMEF is committed to: conserving, restoring and enhancing natural habitats, promoting the sound management of wild, free-ranging elk that may be hunted or otherwise enjoyed, fostering cooperation among federal, state and private organizations and individuals in wildlife management and habitat conservation and educating members and the public about habitat conservation, the value of hunting, hunting ethics and wildlife management.

In Alaska, the RMEF has made funding available to ADF&G for research projects and to protect habitat for wildlife. If memory serves me, one of those research projects involves some moose research done here in the Valley. In addition, RMEF has just recently completed a land acquisition on Afognak Island that transferred almost 3,800 acres to the state to be managed for recreational uses such as hunting and fishing. This land transfer will provide habitat for elk, brown bear, Sitka blacktails and a variety of other animal species, including marine mammals.

If you didn’t know, elk were introduced on Afognak Island back in the 1920s, I think, when the current Coast Guard base on Kodiak Island was still a Navy base. Elk were introduced by the military to give the sailors stationed on Kodiak a recreational hunting opportunity.

These original wild elk introductions have grown over the years and are currently estimated at more than 800 animals on Afognak. The original herd has split into different populations occupying areas on both the east and west sides of the island. Another population has developed on Raspberry Island as well. I’m not sure when actual hunting began on these populations, but it has been occurring for several decades that I know about. I harvested my one and only elk to date from the herd found around Afognak Bay back in the mid-1980s, and elk had been hunted on the island for decades before that. We may not have Colorado’s large elk numbers, but supporting the RMEF in Alaska still makes sense.

As an aside, there were some really good deals in the live auction. One of the items was an African safari for two people for seven days of hunting in the Republic of South Africa. While these safari trips can be relatively inexpensive compared to other types of guided hunting trips around the world or even here in Alaska, they normally still cost $3,000 to $5,000 per hunter. This hunt went for $1,500 for two hunters. That was almost enough incentive for me to go into debt to win a trip like that!

If you want to find out more about the organization, you can visit rmef.org and do some research or contact the national organization. They, in turn, can give you a local contact number for more specifics about RMEF here in the Valley. You can also call 1-800-CALL ELK to get the same information.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by e-mailing sports@frontiersman.com.