Growing up with a strong family background in hunting and fishing, Jay Jung had the outdoors in his blood.

First picking up a weapon at 12, Jung followed in the footsteps of generations before him on the opening day of pheasant season.

But it was his family’s involvement in a group dedicated to protecting pheasants that influenced Jung to start a Pheasants Forever chapter at Iowa State. Pheasants Forever – a non-profit, national organization dedicated to protecting the ringneck pheasant as well as other wildlife populations and habitats – was without a collegiate chapter until just more than a year ago.

“We really didn’t have a template to go from,” said Jung, a junior in agricultural education. “We’re the first [collegiate chapter] in the nation, so we’re kind of the guinea pig to see how this is going to go.”

Jung was inspired by his love of the outdoors and wildlife, as well as his boredom with traditional student organizations.

“I wanted to start a club to have something different than the same old clubs,” he said. “I wanted to do something that I was truly interested in.”

Finding that interest in habitat conservation, Jung said Pheasants Forever helps protect more than just ringneck pheasants.

“We’re conserving soil, helping water quality, helping other species – it’s not only the pheasants we’re interested in helping,” he said. “We’re interested in helping the environment as a whole.”

Part of their push for environmental protection involved raising more than $10,000 in 2001, money the group has used to help local landowners plant trees and shrubs as wind breaks as well as sponsoring eight children who attended a Department of Natural Resources camp.

“We’re really flexible with where our money can go and what we can do,” Jung said. “There’s just a variety of things we do to enhance wildlife diversity.”

This year Jung said money and time will be spent helping Iowa State develop a new prairie – one that will function as an outdoor learning lab for ISU students. The prairie, located east of campus, will span the distance from 6th Street to Lincoln Way between Elwood Drive and Squaw Creek.

Conceived in response to the vastly depleted prairies in Iowa, Jim Colbert, associate professor of botany, is hoping the prairie will bring back some of Iowa’s original landscape.

“We’re trying to establish a quite diverse prairie – things that would’ve been native to the original European settlers,” said Colbert, a member of the outdoor teaching lab committee. “We’d like to have a prairie with lots of different native species of grasses and forbs.”

Colbert said the prairie will always be a “work in progress,” but added a lot of the work done so far has been by students, including members of Pheasants Forever.

“The thing that’s really going to be neat is that students and people can go out and see this diversity,” Jung said. “[The prairie] will offer people a chance to see this stuff a lot closer – it’s just going to be absolutely excellent.”

Hoping to build off the financial success of its first year, Pheasants Forever will be hosting its second annual fund-raising banquet Saturday in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. Student tickets are $35. The ticket includes dinner and a membership to Pheasants Forever. Proceeds will go toward environmental projects relevant to students.