The NAU chapter of the international Wildlife Society focuses on providing graduate and undergraduate students with internships and volunteer opportunities while educating students about careers in wildlife biology.

Devin Elliott, a senior biology and chemistry major, serves as the society’s president.

“The Wildlife Society is focused on the students and informing them on local issues,” Elliott said.

At the most recent meeting on Nov. 9, the officers organized volunteer speakers to discuss wildlife issues pertaining to Flagstaff and northern Arizona.

Alicyn Gitlin, conservation coordinator for the Restore and Protect the Grand Canyon Campaign, spoke about the ungulates — hoofed mammals — native and non-native to Arizona. She profiled such species as elk, bison, pronghorn antelope and mule deer.

Such speakers bring up local issues the Wildlife Society hopes to inform the NAU community about.

The other speaker was Eli Bernstein, general manager of the Flagstaff restaurant Diablo Burger, who talked about food systems and security. Bernstein said when it comes to food, the human’s “home range” is rather large, and localizing food systems could lead to a more sustainable economy and environment.

“The Wildlife Society has gotten involved in a collaborated effort of wildlife management and conservation,” Bernstein said. “We’re building human relationships and creating jobs.”

Most meetings focus on education. Vice president of the society Lauren Marks, a senior biology major, said “[Education is] what this meeting was all about.”

Other meetings of the Wildlife Society focus on volunteer opportunities. These can include black-footed ferret spotlighting in the fall and spring with the Arizona Game and Fish Department; student volunteers stay up all night driving vehicles in Seligman, shining spotlights onto the landscape looking for the ferrets’ reflective eyes. The ferrets are humanely captured, weighed, studied and released. The black-footed ferret is listed as endangered.

Other volunteer opportunities can range from fixing fences to surveying desert tortoises and counting bird populations. The Wildlife Society also finds time to host fun camping trips.

“You definitely get to know people,” Elliott said. “There’s always somebody who needs help with research.”

The volunteering aspect of the Wildlife Society is two-fold: The students help out the community and wildlife organizations while those who are helped offer their guidance, funding and expertise.

The wide variety of projects attracts a wide variety of students. A usual club meeting has conservationists, hunters, biologists and other types of students.

Contrary to the misconception that hunting does not align with conservation efforts, hunters are the source of funds for most conservation projects. In the end, everyone is working toward the same cause — cooperative conservation.

“We have a lot of different people that come to our club,” Marks said. “We’ve all got the same goal, but we go along with it [in] different ways.”

Most students who are interested in the Wildlife Society have a passion associated with the environment, Marks said. There is concern for wildlife and the environment because both elements affect us all.

“Wildlife is part of the environment we live in,” Marks said. “The plants and animals are part of our ecosystem, and if we can’t manage the ecosystem, we are hurting ourselves.”

Part of the Wildlife Society’s mission is to educate and inspire students to make changes for the betterment of wildlife.

“The current generation should try to reverse what’s been done,” Elliott said.

A common passion and goal organizes and inspires the group.

“We all care about animals,” Marks said.

The NAU chapter of the Wildlife Society meets every other Tuesday in room 419 of the Biological Sciences building at 6 p.m. The next meeting is slated for Nov. 23.