Today marks the 80th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of a law establishing the federal duck stamp. The stamp, which has been a required annual purchase to hunt waterfowl legally since 1934, initially cost $1.
The price increased to $2 in 1949, to $3 in 1959 and incrementally thereafter until it hit $15 in 1991, where it has stayed since. A bill supported by a wide range of conservation groups would push the cost to $25 this year.
The stamp purchase was mandated five years after President Herbert Hoover signed the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, which authorized the protection and purchase of wetlands but had no regular funding mechanism. About 98 percent of the money raised from the sale of duck stamps goes toward the purchase or lease of wetlands habitat.
Since its inception, the stamp has generated more than $800 million, which has helped acquire and protect more than 6 million acres. On a federal spending scale, $800 million over 80 years isn’t much, but the revenue has produced results.
Many, though not all, species of North America’s ducks and geese seem to be doing fine. Although numbers fluctuate based on climate, hunting restrictions and land use, waterfowl populations offer evidence that money well spent can help mitigate some disruptions in nature caused by human intrusion.
Hunters and fishermen, responding to species decline and, in some cases, extinction or near-extinction, had a germinal influence on the conservation movement dating to the late 19th century.
Money in a profit-driven culture has been plentiful for extraction and exploitation of nature, but it’s usually scarce for the preservation and conservation of nature. Hunters and fishermen have in essence resorted to taxing themselves to ensure funding for programs that promote habitat healthy enough to sustain wildlife.
Ohio hunters and fishermen buy licenses, permits and stamps for what they hope will ensure the continued operation of a science-based and non-politicized Ohio Division of Wildlife. Through the years, that investment in scientific management has paid dividends, including the establishment or re-establishment of bald eagles, salmon, ospreys, wild turkeys and otters, among other species.
The work of the wildlife division, accomplished with limited funds generated from sportsmen, costs Ohio taxpayers a negligible amount of tax money. A negligible amount for the preservation of nature, however, remains pretty much the rule at the state and federal levels.
President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget request for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is $1.5 billion, a microscopic slice of the proposed $3.9 trillion budget.
Obama’s proposed budget for the Department of the Interior, which houses the USFWS and through which many of the caretaking programs for natural resources get funded, is $11.9 billion.
The administration recently posted on a federal website a series of news releases ballyhooing its budget proposals. The $11.9 billion allocation for 2015 represents a modest increase of 2.4 percent from the enacted 2014 spending, although The Washington Post reported that the allocation for the Interior Department will be virtually the same as it was in 2014.
The Interior Department announced spending increases of $127 million, to about $5.1 billion, for national parks, public land and the Land and Water Conservation Fund. As part of an initiative branded as America’s Great Outdoors, the National Wildlife Refuge System would get $476.4 million, an increase of $4.2 million from 2014.
The budget includes $252.2 million “to conserve, protect and enhance listed and at-risk fish, wildlife, plants and their habitat,” the Fish and Wildlife Service release said. The proposal represents a $30.3 million increase from the 2014 enacted level but costs less than $1 a year per person in the United States.
While many conservation groups reacted generally positively or didn’t react at all to the Obama proposals, at least one criticized the president’s cuts to what it calls “core Great Lakes programs.”
The National Wildlife Federation issued a statement pointing out that Obama’s recommendation of $275 million for the Great Lake Restoration Initiative in 2015 represents a $25 million reduction from the current $300 million. In addition, the proposal falls $200 million short of the $475 million annual spending on Great Lakes cleanup programs that Obama proposed in 2009.