State wildlife officials are asking Iowans not to skip over the Fish/Wildlife Fund when they file their taxes this year.
More popularly known as the Chickadee Checkoff, contributions go to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Diversity Program to help conserve non-game species across the state.
“Our program works on all the wildlife you can’t hunt, fish and trap out there. So, that’s thousands of species… songbirds, raptors, frogs and toads, turtles, bumblebees and butterflies,” said Stephanie Shepherd, a DNR wildlife diversity biologist.
Chickadee Checkoff dollars support research projects and surveys to monitor wildlife populations. They’re also used to restore habitat and reintroduce species that disappeared from Iowa, like trumpeter swans, ospreys and prairie chickens.
The DNR reported over 5,300 Iowa taxpayers contributed roughly $134,000 to the Chickadee Checkoff last year. That’s almost $14,000 less than the 2022 tax year and $22,000 less than the two years prior. Iowans contributed an all time high of $238,477 in 1982, when the state Legislature created the fund.
In the last 20 years, the number of donors has declined by 50% and represents about 0.3% of total taxpayers in Iowa.
“Tax time can be taxing, so you might get to the end of your tax form and be done and forget it,” Shepherd said.
That’s why the Wildlife Diversity Program added an option to donate directly online. Shepherd said the program also receives some funds from Iowa’s natural resources license plates and federal grants.
But the Chickadee Checkoff is still the program’s primary source of funding. If every Iowa taxpayer gave $1, that would add up to $1.6 million for wildlife, Shepherd said.
Bumblebees and wood thrushes
Some of the Chickadee Checkoff dollars supported last year’s launch of the Iowa Bumble Bee Atlas, a citizen-science project aimed at tracking and conserving native bumblebees.
Along With the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and other partners, Shepherd said DNR non-game staff trained volunteers around the state to identify bumblebees and collect data. Volunteers recorded nearly 1,200 bumblebees representing 10 species in Iowa.

Another ongoing project supported by the Chickadee Checkoff focuses on the migration patterns of wood thrush, a forest songbird that has declined by 50% since 1966.
“They have this really beautiful flute-like sound. If you ever hear one, it just stops you in your tracks,” said Anna Buckardt Thomas, an avian ecologist with the DNR.
Her team attached small radio telemetry tags to 27 wood thrush across nine sites in Iowa last summer. Buckardt Thomas explained the tags send out signals, which are picked up by transmitter towers that are part of an international wildlife tracking system.
The wood thrush project is a collaboration with researchers across more than two dozen states and Canada, which recognize wood thrush as a species of conservation need.
“We’re learning that an area in Belize is an important funnel during migration for that species, so we may be able to work with partners in Central and South America to then manage and protect habitat that’s critical for their migration during that period,” Buckardt Thomas said.
She said the data may also reveal ways to help wood thrush while they’re in Iowa.
“Maybe there’s a particular time that the migration happens and something else is going on that we can control and think about how we reduce threats to birds during that critical period,” Buckardt Thomas said.
The Fish/Wildlife Fund is listed on line 21 on Iowa’s state 1040 long tax form. Donations are deducted from refunds or added to taxes that are owed.
Line 21 also includes the Child Abuse Prevention Program. The State Fair Fund (Corndog Checkoff) and the Firefighters/Veterans Fund checkoffs were not renewed for the 2024 tax year.