July is the traditional time of year in the Usa to purchase the new Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, better known as the Duck Postage. These not-postage stamps serve dual duty equally both migratory waterfowl hunting licenses and entrance passes for National Wildlife Refuges where admission is normally charged.

If you've never heard of the Duck Stamp before, you might wonder why U.South. birders, even the ones who don't eat, let solitary shoot ducks, purchase these stamps in droves. The cadre reason is conservation: according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ninety-eight cents out of every dollar generated by the sales of Federal Duck Stamps goes directly to purchase or lease wetland habitat for protection in the National Wildlife Refuge System. That'south some serious set-asides. The official literature states that since 1934, the sales of Federal Duck Stamps have generated more than than $700 one thousand thousand, which has been used to help purchase or lease over 5.ii million acres of waterfowl habitat in the U.S.

So why won't I be ownership a Duck Postage?

No one tin can debate that $700 million towards wetland conservation isn't a fabulous feat of public philanthropy. These protected lands benefit entire ecosystems of organisms, not merely ducks and geese. Further, if you live in proximity to refuges that charge access, that $15 fee seems seriously economic. My trouble with the Duck Postage stamp program lies in how birders and other outdoor enthusiasts are lumped in with hunters. It'southward easy for the government to acknowledge that birders are important consumers of the Duck Stamp and contributors to conservation. In fact, on the USFWS folio for Duck Stamp constituents specifically addressed to birders, they say:

Refuge visitation is now approaching forty million people per year, and according to contempo USFWS figures, more fourscore percent of these visitors engage in wildlife watching, specifically birds. Just as importantly, these visitors are part of the millions of Americans increasingly interested in wild birds and birding.

All the same, when it comes time to draft important conservation legislation or program the creation a 21st Century Youth Conservation Corps, we non-extractive wildlife enthusiasts are forgotten in favor of the claw and bullet gild. Manifestly, when it comes fourth dimension to calculate the fiscal contributions of the dissimilar sectors of outdoor enthusiasts, only hunters and anglers put up worthwhile cash, in part through the sale of hunting and angling licenses.

The Duck Stamp is a hunting license. Information technology seems to me that hunters are credited for the funds flowing from the sale of said stamp despite the major push amongst American birders to purchase information technology for conservation. Maybe the birds really are what matter and my partisan interests nix but picayune griping. Maybe proponents of the Duck Stamp can explain to me (in the comments please!) how the interests of birders are then intimately intertwined with those of hunters that their lobbyists can completely stand for us in the corridors of power. I can't help simply remember nosotros as a group are, through our wholesale back up of the Duck Postage stamp instead of pursuing a more advisable refuge access laissez passer, squandering possibly our best opportunity to establish the fiscal contributions American birders and wildlife watchers make to conservation.

Plus, this year'due south stamp includes a Long-tailed Duck next to a hunting decoy. Not only is that in poor taste for a program that alleges to represent the more peaceful parties in wildfowl conservation, only I encounter plenty oldsquaw hunting around here without being reminded of information technology on my refuge pass!

Written by Mike

Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized exam preparation, simply he's besides a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Also founding ten,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Weblog Network and I and the Bird.