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Help for Migratory Birds

By Kay Charter

I'll never forget the first time I birded a property that had been purchased with conservation dollars. At least I thought at the time it was the first such property. My husband and I were traveling across southern Canada, and we stopped at a large pond with a thick willowy edge separating water from prairie. Although there were many ducks, it was the common yellowthroats and marsh wrens skulking in the cattails that grabbed my attention. But my most vivid memory of that day is the sign noting that Ducks Unlimited had purchased this property.

"Ugh," I said to my husband. "Hunters."

He didn't argue. Instead, he said, "Look at all the songbirds here. If this place hadn't been saved by duck hunters, they wouldn't have a home."

He made a point I hadn't considered. It had never occurred to me hunters were spending millions on conservation and that bird watchers (among other outdoor lovers) were reaping the benefits.

On that same trip, more than 20 years ago, we also visited Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There we got our first glimpse of trumpeter swans, a species driven nearly to extinction early in the century. It was there, too, I learned that the Ducks Unlimited pond in Manitoba was not, in fact, the first place I'd visited that was purchased with conservation dollars. Because we’d enjoyed many of our national wildlife refuges during our travels, I'd actually spent a lot of time on land bought with conservation dollars.

Until our visits to these two sites, it never occurred to me that any organization or group, except for the federal government and The Nature Conservancy, purchased or provided funding for the purchase of environmentally important lands. I was like most other people in thinking of the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp as nothing more than a license to hunt waterfowl. Although the stamp does provide for such hunting, its true value is in the millions of acres purchased with the funds it brings in. That should be especially important for those of us who are concerned about dwindling habitat and vanishing wilderness. Since its inception in 1934, a full 98 percent of the funds generated from duck stamp sales have been dedicated to the purchase of refuge land. That's $14.70 of the $15 price for the stamp. Today, more than $1 billion has been generated. That money has been used to purchase more than five million acres of wetland and grassland habitat in 550 national wildlife refuges. One of my favorite refuges, New Mexico's fantastic Bosque del Apache, was purchased virtually entirely with duck stamp dollars. It's hard to imagine a world without Bosque and its tens of thousands of overwintering sandhill cranes.

Ric Zarwell, Important Bird Area coordinator for Iowa, wrote the following about the sale of duck stamps and subsequent purchase of refuge land: "This is fantastic news for birders. Why? Because hundreds of species of birds, including many that are rapidly declining in other portions of their ranges, require these grassland and wetland habitats for continued existence. However, despite providing so much of the habitat that bird watchers value dearly (and will value even more in the future), few birders and other nature-oriented citizens know that the stamp program even exists."

Birds like northern harriers, upland sandpipers, bobolinks, and short-eared owls don't give a hoot who pays for the land on which they nest, and we birders shouldn't either. But we should do no less than hunters in helping to save those places upon which they depend.

Today there are estimated to be more than 54 million bird watchers in North America. Imagine how much habitat could be saved if every single one of them purchased at least one Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp. This stamp is available online in some states, at most U.S. Post Offices, and from many sporting goods stores. I'm not a duck hunter, but I've purchased my stamp. When will you buy yours?

Kay Charter is the Executive Director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat and an avid bird watcher from Omena, Michigan.