Amite River Sanctuary Cleanup/Fundraiser!

The Fundraiser

 The LSU Birding Club is holding a joint fundraiser with the LSU Botany Club and the Baton Rouge Audubon Society (BRAS). Members and friends of the clubs will volunteer their time on Sunday, April 2 at Baton Rouge Audubon's new Amite River Sanctuary. Volunteers will create and maintain trails and abate noxious weeds. In addition to cleaning up the preserve, club members will be surveying bird and plant life on the property. This is where the fundraising happens. We are asking that people pledge an amount of money, per species, for the number of bird and/or plant species we encounter on April 2nd at the sanctuary. Proceeds from these pledges will benefit the birding club, the botany club, and the Amite River Sanctuary.

Where does the money go?

A quarter of the proceeds from each pledge will be donated to the sanctuary, while the clubs will retain 75%. The birding club will put money towards gas for field trips, pizza for meetings, and into organizing events like this. The botany club similarly uses money for field trips and meetings, in addition to membership in various botanical societies. The sanctuary will use funding for improvement of habitat and accessibility. Learn more about what they do at the link under additional resources.

The birding club spends about $70 a month on pizza for meetings. Gas for field trips is usually about a tank per trip, about another $35 per vehicle. To feed the club on overnight trips, or provide lunch for a volunteer event, is about the same price. Fundraising allows us to continue spreading knowledge about birds to college students and exciting new folks to get involved in birding and conservation. We do not charge dues in order to maximize involvement, and as such, are supported entirely by fundraising and donations. This semester, some of our events have included volunteering on a Yellow Rail survey with Audubon Delta, camping in Kisatchie National Forest to view Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, Bachman's Sparrows, and other pineywoods species, and attending guest talks from great ornithologists like Dr. James Van Remsen of LSU. Your donation will go directly towards more trips like the one pictured below! 


LSU Birding Club members watch Jonathon Lueck, marshbird biologist for Audubon Delta, band a Yellow Rail during a Cameron coast camping trip in February  

How does a pledge work?

To pledge, simply email the president of the birding club at nickwramsey@gmail.com with the amount you would like to contribute for birds, plants, or both. Use the subject line "Amite River Sanctuary Pledge". The bird list will be finalized by Sunday evening and the plant list will be finalized by the following Saturday. We expect to detect 50-60 bird species within the sanctuary, with some luck and good weather. The property has recorded over 100 bird species in its short life. Plants are trickier to calculate, but 175 species have been recorded in and around the sanctuary on iNaturalist. If you pledge $0.50 per bird and we find 50 species, the birding club will receive $18.75 and BRAS will receive $6.25. If you also pledge $1 per plant, and we detect 80 plants, the botany club will receive $60 and BRAS will receive another $20. 

How to pay?

Payments can be made by cash, check, or Venmo. All organizations will also accept donations in the same format. Make checks payable to LSU Birding Club for bird pledges and donations, LSU Botany Club for plant pledges and donations, and Baton Rouge Audubon Society for donations to support the refuge and/or other work they do. For Venmo, email nickwramsey@gmail.com for further details. 

Additional Resources

To find out more about the work BRAS does at the Amite River Sanctuary and beyond, click here. 
Explore this blog further to find out more about the birding club and keep up with our events. 
Follow LSU Birding Club and LSU Botany Club on Instagram below. The birding club is new so our social media presence is limited, but it will expand!


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