3 days ago
Conservation Camp helps out Rapid Creek
Rapid City, S.D. (KELO) — For the past 61 years, the South Dakota Wildlife Federation's Youth Conservation Camp has been teaching high school students about conservation efforts and helping them learn new outdoor skills.
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Each day at camp, these students get to learn and work on new conservation skills.
'They know about the right and wrong of conservation. And to do things for the animals, for the wildlife to preserve it. Because if you don't preserve it, it's not going to be for the future coming up for their kids to pass it on,' Camp Director Bob Schaeffer said.
Chace Humphrey has transitioned from once being a camper to now helping other kids enjoy the events as a camp counselor.
'Originally, my dad came to this camp and so he kind of referred me to it and so the reason I started coming back is because the people here created a home away from home. They made a really loving community and so I wanted to be a part of that and hopefully show that to someone else that's newly coming in,' Camp Counselor Chace Humphrey said.
Groups in Rapid City come together to clean up Rapid Creek each month. Now this group of students was able to lend a hand, as well as work on beaver mitigation efforts.
'Move them out, I don't know if they have a big big problem here in town but to move them away from doing a lot of damage for the trees here town. They probably want to put the beavers out in the Black Hills to hold back some of the water on it,' Schaeffer said.
'There is a mix of paint with masonry sand. With the beavers' teeth, they don't stop growing so they eat the trees and whatnot. They don't want to eat the sandy trees, so that kind of protects some of them to let them grow and kind of mature into better high-quality trees later down the road for them,' Humphrey said.
This camp provides a mix of educational classes with hands-on events to help more kids understand the importance of conservation.
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