Moving beyond protection to habitat conservation

Protection from overharvest was important during the earliest days of waterfowl management, but the importance of habitat conservation quickly came to the forefront as the American landscape of the early 20th century changed rapidly. Fortunately, the United States had a conservation leader in President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) who recognized that. And as “T.R.” was prone to do, he acted decisively.

A passionate hunter, Roosevelt saw the need to protect habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife. Among the many landmark actions he took on behalf of wildlife conservation, one of his greatest accomplishments was the establishment of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Without this system of more than 150 million acres of habitat dedicated to wildlife, duck hunters would not enjoy the waterfowl populations and hunting opportunity that we have today. This system of conservation land is unrivaled anywhere else on Earth and in large part represents a gift from previous generations of duck hunters to current and future generations.  

Although Roosevelt made history by establishing the refuge system, paying for its growth became a challenge in following decades. Fortunately, duck hunters once again stepped forward, with a fellow named Ding Darling leading the way.

Jay “Ding” Darling was a colorful character, to say the least. He paid his way through Beloit College by performing music. “I could sing in any religion you wanted, and I made the rounds of all the funerals every week,” Darling recalled. He was later thrown out of college for a time for publishing an editorial cartoon lampooning the college’s leading administrators, a skill that he eventually parlayed into a successful career as a newspaper cartoonist, winning Pulitzer Prizes in 1924 and 1942.    

Darling loved nature, spending many of his teenage summers on his Uncle John’s farm in Michigan. Uncle John gave Darling an early lesson in conservation (and in discipline) when as a small boy Darling shot a wood duck in spring.

But conservation was truly awakened in him when as a young adult he returned to Michigan for Uncle John’s funeral. What he remembered as a haven for wildlife had been despoiled. The rich topsoil had eroded, the timber had been cut down, and the river’s once clear waters were muddy with sediment. “This was my first conscious realization of what could happen to land, what could happen to clear-running streams, what could happen to bird life and human life when the common laws of Mother Nature were disregarded,” Darling said. How many duck hunters have unfortunately experienced similar epiphanies in their lives?

Alarmed by what he was seeing, he turned his considerable abilities as a nationally recognized editorial cartoonist to promoting conservation. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed him to the Beck Commission to provide recommendations for solving the Dust Bowl waterfowl crisis, when according to one estimate the U.S. duck population fell from 100 million to 20 million between 1930 and 1934. The commission’s primary recommendation to the president was to conserve much more habitat, but the real challenge was a familiar one: how to pay for it.

Later that same year, President Roosevelt appointed Darling as chief of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Darling threw himself into the job, undertaking sweeping change and immediately turning his attention to raising funds to rapidly expand the refuge system as the Beck Commission recommended. With Darling’s support, the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act was enacted in March 1934, creating the “federal duck stamp.” Since the inaugural duck stamp carrying Darling’s design of a pair of mallards was issued, duck stamp sales have raised more than $700 million and conserved more than 5.2 million acres of waterfowl habitat across the United States.

Darling was a plainspoken, committed duck hunter who not only changed history through his personal actions but also through his inspiration of others. Darling likely influenced Joseph Knapp, founder of the More Game Birds in America Foundation, which became Ducks Unlimited in 1937 and grew to more than 40,000 members just a few years later.