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Illinois Conservation Foundation
Fink Memorial Award winner announced
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[JULY 24, 2004]
SPRINGFIELD -- Michael
Delong of Murphysboro is this year's recipient of the Todd Fink
Memorial Award, presented by the
Illinois Conservation Foundation. The foundation's executive
director, Jess Hansen, made the announcement Wednesday.
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Delong is a graduate student in the
Department of Plant Biology at Southern Illinois
University-Carbondale and will receive a $500 stipend from the
foundation for travel costs associated with research and
registration costs involved in his research.
Delong is working on a study to find
out if populations of certain threatened or endangered plant
species, including the federally listed endangered Mead's milkweed,
are declining because the types of habitats they need to resist that
decline are disappearing. The research is important because natural
forest openings are declining within the range of these species.
Delong's project will focus on some of the habitat needs and
appropriate management actions to reverse the declines in
populations of the targeted plant species.
"Mr. Delong's study of forest openings
and their relationship to rare plants in southern Illinois is a
fresh, big-picture concept that will hopefully spur additional
conservation and management priorities to these disappearing natural
communities that were once so widespread," said Illinois Endangered
Species Protection Board manager Randy Nyboer. "The potential to
benefit endangered species is significant."
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The Todd Fink Memorial Award fund was
established to honor Todd Fink, a highly regarded biologist and
ornithologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, who
died in 1995 at the age of 36. The award is presented to individuals
whose graduate research at SIU-Carbondale focuses on threatened or
endangered species of plants or animals.
To
contribute to the Todd Fink Memorial Fund or to learn more about the
foundation, an IRS 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization, contact
the Illinois Conservation Foundation, One Natural Resources Way,
Springfield, IL 62702-1271; phone (217) 785-2003;
http://www.ilcf.org.
[Illinois
Department of Natural Resources
news release]
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