📷 Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge overlook during sunrise | Eden Taylor/National Wildlife Refuge Association

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – OCTOBER 25th, 2024 – The board of the National Wildlife Refuge Association kicked off their 50th Anniversary today in Bloomington at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The organization was established in Minneapolis in 1975.

“We are so proud to be back in the Twin Cities to kick off our 50th year ,” said Major General USMC (Ret.) E. Gray Payne, National Wildlife Refuge Association Board Chair . “The Minnesotan appreciation for the conservation of the great outdoors has been ingrained in our organization from the beginning, and this commitment will carry us forward for the next 50 years.”

The National Wildlife Refuge Association is the only non-profit exclusively focused on protecting, promoting, and enhancing the 850-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, the world’s largest network of lands and waters set aside for wildlife conservation. “We look to the past to acknowledge our roots and to the future to strengthen our mission to promote the National Wildlife Refuge System and the vast array of wildlife and vital habitat it protects,” said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, President and CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association. “We must work together as a society if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and loss of biodiversity in the years ahead.”

The National Wildlife Refuge Association also recognized a founding member of the organization, Minnesotan Ed Crozier , who spoke to the group about both the inspiration and the urgency behind the formation of the organization in 1975. Crozier was also a driving force behind the creation of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in 1976.

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The National Wildlife Refuge Association is a non-profit exclusively focused on protecting, promoting, and enhancing the 850-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, the world’s largest network of lands and waters set aside for wildlife conservation.

For all media inquiries and questions, please contact Eden Taylor, Director of Communications & Marketing at etaylor@refugeassociation.org.