DOVER – DNREC’s Division of Watershed Stewardship invites the public to vote on finalists in the first Delaware Watersheds Photo Contest by visiting www.delawarewatersheds.org. The contest aims to share the beauty of Delaware’s diverse environment while acting as a vivid reminder that everything happening on land within the state’s watersheds also directly affects what happens in our waterways.

A watershed is all of the land that water moves across or under while flowing to a specific body of water. The contest was open to all photographers, with images from any of Delaware’s watersheds accepted as entries. Judges were looking for striking photographic images of Delaware’s landscapes, waterscapes, native plants, and native wildlife.

Contestants entered photographs in three categories:

• Natural Landscapes and Waterscapes of Delaware – Photographs of any waterbodies such as streams, rivers, lakes, creeks, estuaries, bay, ocean, etc. or scenic landscapes in Delaware.
• Native Wildlife of Delaware — pictures of native animals, birds, fish, insects, and amphibians.
• Native Plants of Delaware – photos of native plants in any setting.

Online votes must be cast by Sunday, July 8. Contest judges determined the photographs that moved on to the online voting phase of the photo contest. Public voting will determine the top finalists in each category. Photography by contest finalists will be on display at the 2018 Delaware State Fair, and will be voted on by fairgoers to determine first, second and third-place winners. The three winners in each category will receive a DNREC Delaware State Parks annual pass for 2019. First-place winners in each category also will be recognized at the annual DNREC Awards ceremony on Governor’s Day at the Delaware State Fair in July. Winning photographs also will appear in a future issue of Outdoor Delaware magazine.

For more information, please contact Phil Miller at phillip.miller@delaware.gov or 302-290-3578.

CONTACT: Philip Miller, Conservation Programs Section, DNREC Division of Watershed Stewardship, 302-290-3578.

Vol. 48, No. 174

DOVER – Do you know a Delaware student who is working to make a difference for the environment? The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is encouraging teachers, classmates, parents, club or group leaders, and others to nominate these students for the 2018 Young Environmentalist of the Year Awards. Nominations must be based on actions or projects which have taken place between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018.

Nominations will be accepted through Friday, June 22, 2018. A winner will be chosen from each of the following categories:

The Young Environmentalist program honors Delaware students whose actions have helped protect, restore or enhance of Delaware’s natural resources through one or more of the following means:

• Demonstrating Environmental Stewardship
• Initiating an Innovative Project
• Increasing Public Awareness
• Demonstrating Environmental Ethics

Winners will be honored in a special ceremony on Governor’s Day at the 2018 Delaware State Fair Thursday, July 26. Each category winner will receive a certificate, gift card and prize pack in recognition of his or her contribution to the community.

This is the 25th year for the Young Environmentalist awards program, which was established by colleagues and friends in honor of Dr. Edwin H. “Toby” Clark II, who served as Secretary of DNREC from 1989 until 1993.

Nominations may be submitted by U.S. mail to Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 89 Kings Highway, Dover, DE 19901, or by email to joanna.wilson@delaware.gov.

For more information, including nomination forms, please visit www.dnrec.delaware.gov/Admin/Pages/YoungEnv.aspx, or contact Joanna Wilson at 302-739-9902 or email joanna.wilson@delaware.gov.

Vol. 48, No. 71

Contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

DOVER – DNREC’s Division of Fish & Wildlife today announced the winning entries in the 2017/18 Delaware Hunting Photo Contest. First place was awarded to Angela Garcia of Smyrna for “At the End of the Day,” featuring her husband Paul and son Dominic on their boat during a hunting trip in Little Creek.

The second place winner was “Son and Father,” taken by F. Neil Dougherty, of Hockessin, showing family friends Dr. Dan Elliott and his son Joseph Elliott at the end of a successful hunt at Raymond Neck.

Entries receiving honorable mention were:

• “Rehoboth Bay Ice Fog,” by Justyn Foth of Viola, featuring his uncles and friend hunting in Rehoboth Bay
• “Patience is a Virtue,” by Charles Burton of Milton, featuring his Chesapeake Bay retriever Ruby Bay near Gordon’s Pond
• “Tranquility,” by Taylor Deemer of Lewes, featuring Samantha Broadhurst with a kayak full of decoys at Collins Pond

The winning photo will appear on the cover and inside the 2018/2019 Delaware Hunting & Trapping Guide. The hunting guide will be available in July 2018 online, at the DNREC license desk in Dover and from hunting license agents statewide.

Three judges – Division of Fish & Wildlife Director David Saveikis, and local photographers Jesse Baird and Rebecca Hoover, both DNREC employees – reviewed the entries and narrowed them to the top five. Photographs were judged relative to the contest theme of “A Day Afield” and for composition and technical criteria.

“The Division’s annual hunting photo contest provides a great opportunity for hunters to capture and share their hunting experiences, which can inspire other hunters to enjoy, photograph, and share their hunting experiences in Delaware’s great outdoors,” said Director Saveikis.

For more information about future Division of Fish & Wildlife photo contests, please visit de.gov/fwphotos, or contact Jennifer Childears at 302-739-9910, or email jennifer.childears@delaware.gov.

Media Contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

This year’s theme: ‘Healthy Soils Are Full of Life’ 

DOVER – The Kent, New Castle, and Sussex Conservation Districts are now accepting entries in their annual conservation poster contest for K-12 students in Delaware’s public, charter, private, or home schools. Posters will be judged on the 2017 theme, “Healthy Soils Are Full of Life,” in the following grade categories: K-1, 2-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12. First, second and third place winners in each category will receive a cash prize of $50, $25, and $15, respectively. The state-level winning posters also will receive a cash award from the Delaware Association of Conservation Districts (DACD).

The deadline for poster entries is Friday, Oct. 20. In addition to regular posters, a special category for computer-generated posters is open to all high school students in grades 9-12 who take a graphics art/computer class or program of study. These entries will be judged at the county/state level only and will not be eligible for national judging.

Each Conservation District will submit first-place posters in each grade category for judging at the state level. In the event that an insufficient number of posters are received at the county level, county level judging will be eliminated and all posters will be judged at the state level. First-place posters in each grade level will be entered into the national conservation district poster contest, with winners to be displayed during the National Association of Conservation District’s conference in Nashville, Tenn., Jan. 27-31, 2018.

The student’s name, grade level, teacher, and school must be clearly and legibly printed on the back of the poster. Posters must be hand-delivered or mailed flat in time to the meet the deadline to the Conservation District office in the county in which the student resides. Addresses are as follows:

• New Castle Conservation District, 2430 Old County Road, Newark, DE 19702
• Kent Conservation District, 800 Bay Road, Suite 2, Dover, DE 19901
• Sussex Conservation District, 21315 Berlin Road, Unit 4, Georgetown, DE 19947

The annual conservation poster contest provides students with an opportunity to convey their thoughts about soil, water, and related natural resource issues through art. It also highlights the educational outreach efforts of conservation districts and their state associations, auxiliaries, and agencies. The contest follows the annual stewardship theme developed and sponsored by the National Association of Conservation Districts.

“Healthy Soils Are Full of Life,” this year’s theme, reminds us of the important benefits that healthy and productive soils provide to us for food, fiber, habitat, and clean water. For more information and educational resources about the theme and poster contest guidelines, please visit http://www.nacdnet.org/general-resources/stewardship-and-education-materials/contests/.

For a flyer with Delaware’s poster contest guidelines, please visit www.newcastleconservationdistrict.org, www.kentcd.org or www.sussexconservation.org. For more information, please contact Rick Mickowski at 302-832-3100 ext. 8979, or by email at Rick.Mickowski@delaware.gov.

The annual poster contest is sponsored by DNREC and the Delaware Association of Conservation Districts. DNREC’s Division of Watershed Stewardship provides technical and financial assistance to Delaware’s farmers, landowners, and homeowners to protect and enhance the state’s soil and water resources, mainly through the Division’s Delaware Conservation Districts staff.

Vol. 47, No. 214

Contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

DOVER – Just one week remains to submit your best hunting photographs for the Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife’s annual Delaware Hunting Photo Contest, which ends on Tuesday, Jan. 31. The winning photo will be featured on the cover or inside the 2017-2018 Delaware Hunting and Trapping Guide.

A judging panel comprised of DNREC staff will be looking for photos that best portray this year’s contest theme, “Hunting with Family or Friends.” Judges also will look at technical criteria including resolution, clarity and composition.

“The hunting photo contest is a great chance to showcase and share adventures with other hunters,” said Division of Fish & Wildlife Director David Saveikis. “The theme helps reinforce and capture the fun of a shared outdoor hunting experience.”

The contest is open to all Delaware residents, with a maximum of three entries per person. To be eligible, photographs must have been taken in Delaware. Portrait orientation is preferred; landscape photos, if chosen among contest winners, may be cropped for presentation.

Photographs must be submitted as 8×10-inch photo quality prints, with no frames or mats and no markings or signatures on the front or back. Winning entries must be available in a digital version with resolution of 300 dpi or greater when enlarged to 8×10 inches.

Normal processing of RAW image files, minimal cropping and minor adjustments to color and contrast are acceptable. HDR and focus stacking are permitted as long as manipulation is disclosed upon entry. Nothing should be added to the image or, aside from dust spots, taken away. The entrant must hold all rights to the photograph and must not infringe on the rights of any other person. Images that involve unlawful harm to wildlife or damage to the environment should not be submitted and will not be accepted. Entries will not be returned.

Entries may be mailed to the DNREC Division of Fish & Wildlife Photo Contest, Attention: Jennifer Childears, 89 Kings Highway, Dover, DE 19901. All entries must be postmarked or delivered by Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017, and must include a completed and signed entry form. A photo release form is also required for photos that include images of children younger than 18. Information and forms are available on the Division of Fish & Wildlife’s website or may be requested by calling Jennifer Childears at 302-739-9910, or email jennifer.childears@delaware.gov.

Media contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902.

Vol. 47, No. 21

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