Wildlife club welcomes new members

CSC’s Wildlife Club has a record number of incoming members of different majors.

Last year the club had 15 active members including the club’s officers, this semester the organization has had 60 new members sign up. Wildlife Club Adviser Teresa Frink is excited for the coming semester and hopes to see students with different majors joining. 

“The number of sign-ups is really exciting; we can’t wait to see everyone participating and learning about wildlife,” Frink said. “We really want to see people from all over campus and from different majors participating and getting experiences.” 

Despite the setback of not starting until after midterms, the club hopes to make up for lost time with volunteer activities. 

The club is beginning to plan for upcoming volunteer activities including the annual bighorn sheep capture and mule deer check stations.

“Wildlife are around us and we will always be around them,” Justin Gress, Wildlife Club President said. “Thats why it’s important to teach people what we do.”

One of the club’s goals is to give members a chance to get experience that could help them in their future careers. The volunteer work the club does helps the members gain connections to current professionals. The main goal of the club is to help students prepsre for their future by helping them with experience.

“Experience is one of the biggest things that employers look for on a resume,” Frink said. 

During club meetings a speaker who works in the field of wildlife will speak about what they do and what they did to get where they are. This is another way connections are made by students. It also gives students a better view on what jobs they could do in the future. 

“I’ve emailed several professionals that are going to speak at our meetings,” Gress said, “it’s really important to learn from these guys, they’ve been in our shoes.”

For non-majors, Wildlife Club can help create an understanding of what wildlife professionals do and why they do it. The club is hoping to see more diverse majors join and see more interest in wildlife throughout campus.

“Connections are important and one thing that we want to do is to have more members that aren’t wildlife or rangeland majors,” Gress said. “It’s a great way to learn about wildlife and the world around us.”

One of the main events the club volunteers for is the bighorn sheep capture, where students assist professionals in capturing and handling animals. These animals are checked for and vaccinated against a local strain of pneumonia and then released.

The second major volunteer service done by the club is deer check stations. The stations are set up for hunters to bring in animals and have them aged and tested for chronic wasting disease. Members go through training to help them learn to age deer before volunteering. 

Both of these events connect students to the community and teach them how wildlife is effecting the communities. 

“These events are really cool to participate in,” Gress said. “No matter what your major is, getting to participate is a cool experience that students should participate in.”

As the semester continues, the club hopes to see students being active in the organization. Last year, the club saw a decrease in member participation after the first half of the semester. Anyone is welcome to join at anytime throughout the semester.

The club begins meetings next Thursday and will have meetings every second and fourth Thursday of the month at 11 a.m. in the Rangeland Complex. 

“We are always open to new members, so anyone can come by,” Gress said. “We hope to see people coming and participating all semester.”