This useful little book highlights the historical transition by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources from a focus on managing and propagating game species for the benefit of hunters to a broader ecological biodiversity-based focus by creating the Nongame Wildlife Program in 1977. This progressive program became a national model for other states to create their own nongame wildlife programs to benefit, manage, survey, and restore their wildlife ranging from butterflies, frogs, songbirds, snakes, and bats to bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and trumpeter swans.

The audience for this book includes Minnesotans who annually donate to the Nongame Wildlife Checkoff on their state income tax forms and all Americans who have benefitted from DNR nongame publications, written to protect wildlife by landscaping, gardening, building nest boxes, and bird feeding. The book reveals how citizen generosity has benefitted many wildlife species and habitats.