Moving Portland Citizens Along the Conservation Continuum

NAME: Robert Sallinger

LOCATION: Portland, OR

ORGANIZATION: Audubon Society of Portland

In 1992, Robert Sallinger walked into the Audubon Society of Portland with an injured prairie falcon and asked if he could volunteer in the rehabilitation center, cleaning cages. His wish was granted – and today, 17 years later, Sallinger is the organization’s Conservation Director.

The primary management principle Sallinger employs today was very much influenced by his initial experience with the group: take citizens at any level of conservation engagement and understanding and move them along the continuum from appreciation to understanding to action.

With his TogetherGreen Conservation Fellowship, Sallinger will develop a campaign to establish a permanent funding base for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s non-game program. State game programs in Oregon have flourished because of funding sources provided by taxes placed on hunting and fishing gear, but no such mechanisms exist for the non-game program. The non-game program is responsible for managing 88 percent of the species found in the state of Oregon, but it receives less than two percent of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget.

Sallinger will use his Fellowship to build a campaign to pass a Bird Seed Tax in Oregon’s next legislative session. A 10 percent tax on birdseed could generate more than $2 million a year, which could go a long way towards protecting native wildlife and habitat.

Sallinger sees the tax as an effective way to move the growing numbers of people who feed birds in their backyards along the continuum from appreciation to action – by linking the enjoyment of birds at the feeder to the need to fund statewide conservation programs.