The bold sign reads, "Your Duck Stamp Dollars at Work!" You can find this popular sign at a number of Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs) and National Wildlife Refuges across the country.
But it really raises a question: "How much did your stamp secure in the way of wetland and grassland habitat?"
With that in question in mind, we attempt here to pursue a reasonable answer for everyone who has bought a Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation [Duck] Stamp in the last year.
According to preliminary numbers from the USFWS, there were about $53 million that came into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund (MBCF) in 2013. The MBCF is where about $24 million from sales of the Duck Stamp were deposited last year.
The combined fee-title and easement acres of wetland, bottomland, and grassland habitats secured during the year were 60,000 acres (or about 7,000 acres for refuges and 53,000 acres for small wetlands and associated grasslands in the Prairie Pothole Region).
That comes out to about $883 per acre of habitat secured. If 98% of the price of a Duck Stamp goes into the MBCF for habitat preservation, that's $14.70 per stamp. Then, the $14.70 accounts for 1.66% of an acre, or 725 square feet.
In our opinion, that's really impressive. It's an area slightly less than 27 feet x 27 feet... or almost the combined floor space of an average bedroom, kitchen, and dining room in a new home in the USA in 2013. The comparison is appropriate, producing a "bedroom," "kitchen," and "dining room" for waterfowl, long-legged waders, shorebirds, and many other birds and wildlife. Moreover, to be able to stand somewhere on a refuge or WPA and think that "my stamp" secured a block that's about 725 square feet, should be enough to make anyone feel proud.
To accentuate the significance of that sort of conservation contribution, you can now download a new Certificate of Conservation made available by the Friends, one to which you can attach a valid $15-stamp and show off your role in preserving 725 square feet of crucial habitat.
- Scott Yaich, Ducks Unlimited
- Paul J. Baicich, Friends of the Migratory Bird/Duck Stamp
More at: http://www.friendsofthestamp.org
