Illinois, Iowa Among Best States For Wildlife Protection

Some parts of the Midwest are pretty good at taking care of animals.

SmileHub looked at the Best States for Wildlife Protection with recent numbers and Illinois and Iowa both did pretty good.

They looked at 17 key metrics:

• Animal charities per capita
• Environmental protection charities per capita
• Number of state conservation programs & initiatives
• State wildlife grants per capita
• Number of education & outreach programs for wildlife conservation
• Zoologists & wildlife biologists per capita
• Share of state land designated for parks & wildlife
• Presence of wildlife corridor legislation
• Presence of endangered species legislation
• State internet-hunting laws (illegal hunting)
• Vulnerability to climate change
• Industrial toxins per square mile of land area
• Median air quality index
• "Invasive species" threat ranking
• "Land-use change" threat ranking
• "Overexploitation" threat ranking

They divided all of those into 3 categories: Government & Community Support, Legal Protection, and Ecosystem Status.

Iowa ranks 22nd, with the best score in Legal Protection. Illinois ranks 17th, with the best score in Government & Community Support.

Vermont ranks the highest in Wildlife Protection and Nevada ranks the lowest. I've hunted (legally, duh) in Wyoming and I'm not surprised that Wyoming, Colorado, Alaska, and more well-known hunting states rank high in Wildlife Protection, especially in Wildlife Grant Dollars per capita and in Legal Protection.

Really, most of the Midwest did well in Wildlife Protection. Minnesota ranked 10th, while Nebraska ranked 13th. But that wasn't the story for everyone. The worst Midwestern states for Wildlife protection are Ohio (coming in at 44th) and Kansas (ranking at 46th).