Fundraiser Next Weekend Will

Continue Waterfowl Conservation Efforts

LITCHFIELD — The waterfowl habitat conservation organization Ducks Unlimited will be holding its annual dinner banquet on Saturday, February 10, at Bistro East at The Litchfield Inn. The public is invited to enjoy an evening of fine food, live music, raffles, and silent and live auctions. The event will begin at 5:30.

“The main focus of this evening is the live auction,” Craig Ferris said this week. The Newtown resident is the regional director of Ducks Unlimited, a national organization. Among the items being offered at next weekend’s event will be framed, matted sporting art, decoys, firearms, and other related items.

Tickets are $65 per person, or $85 per couple, with $25 of the ticket price covering a one-year $25 DU membership fee. Tickets must be purchased or reserved in advance; there will be no sales at the door. For reservations contact Mr Ferris at 426-2466.

DU hosts as many as 20 fundraisers annually across Connecticut, but the February event is the only one in the Litchfield area. Nationally, DU hosts 5,000 grassroots fundraising events annually such as member and sponsor banquets, shooting and fishing tournaments, and golf outings.

Over 3,500 Connecticut residents are members of DU. The organization is completely volunteer-based, and its members are conservationists and lovers of the outdoors who live in the US, Canada and Mexico.

During the past year, 82 percent of DU’s support and revenue was converted directly to habitat conservation programs. The organization raised $133.1 billion during fiscal year 1999-2000, with Connecticut accounting for $692,784.

Connecticut’s membership has completed 13 conservation projects. Two of the largest — Cedar Swamp in Hartford and Lower Connecticut River Rest in New London — represent conserved lots of 100 and 335 acres respectively. Projects have also been completed in Middlesex, New Haven, and Windham, with 936 acres across the state now protected.

The Cockaponset and Hackney Wildlife Management area in Middlesex is one of the most recently-completed projects by Connecticut DU members. In 1999 the area received new water control structures and dike repairs, which will now provide better habitat for ducks and other wildlife for years to come.

DU’s projects benefit wood ducks, mallards, black ducks, Canada goose, green-winged teal and blue winged teal species.

Regional director Craig Ferris can be contacted by telephone or email (cferris@ducks.org). Also available for additional information is Ducks Unlimited state chairman J. Rick Ciopot, at 853-4868 or mrjrick@aol.com, and event coordinator Ron Glander, at 264-3033.