Ducks Unlimited Podcast

00:00 Mike Brasher Welcome back everyone. I am Mike Brasher and I'll be your host on this episode. Joining me as co-host in studio is Katie Burke. Katie, welcome. Thanks. Hi Mike. It's good to be back in studio with you. Joining us remotely today, we have two extremely special guests and they're going to help us discuss a topic that's of great importance to waterfowl hunters, wetlands conservation, waterfowl art, and most importantly, migratory bird habitat conservation more broadly. That topic is the US Fish and Wildlife Service Duck Stamp Program. Other folks will have heard it referenced as the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp. There's a piece of legislation that goes along with that. We'll probably get into a little bit of that. Our two guests are Jerome Ford, Assistant Director for the US Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Program. Jerome, welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Glad to be here. And Suzanne Fellows, Manager of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Duck Stamp Program. Suzanne, great to have you with us as well. About one of my favorite things. Yeah. Well, I hope it's a favorite thing of a lot of people that are listening to this episode because it is, by many accounts, the most successful and efficient wetlands conservation program on the planet. And we're going to talk about why that is, but it's a super cool thing. We are recording this episode on July the 6th. And just a couple of weeks ago, we had, what's it called, Katie, the official name, the first day of duck stamp? The first day of sale. First day of sale for the duck stamp. And we had that hosted at the Bass Pro Shops Pyramid there at our Waterfowling Heritage Center. It was the site of a little special occasion there. We may get into a little bit of that discussion. I think what we want to do to start with though, Jerome and Suzanne, is have each of you provide a bit of your background. Jerome, you have a long history with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And so we'll start with you. Give us a bit of that history. And then I want you to share with our audience what you do, what your program, the Migratory Bird Program does and all that it encompasses. So take it away, Jerome.

02:11 *Jerome Ford * Thanks, Mike. You said I've been around a long time. That's a sense of saying that I'm old. That's quite all right.

02:16 Mike Brasher Thank you for being respectful. Yeah, we're friends. We've known one another for what, 18 years now?

02:21 *Jerome Ford * A long time, sir. Yes. Well, yeah, I'm a graduate of Gammon State University way back in the day and started work for the US Fish and Wildlife Service about 33 years ago. And I'm proud to say I began my career in the field as a young refuge manager trainee. I did that for about 16 years. Started out at Hollabend National Wildlife Refuge in Logan Cave, did Ozark Cave fish and bats and of course waterfowl at Hollabend. And I went on to Bayou Cacodrie Refuge in Louisiana where I did black bear and different neotropical songbirds there. And then to the famed Tentsault River National Wildlife Refuge in northern Louisiana. And after that, after about six years there, I got a call from the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dale Hall, who used to work for Ducks Unlimited. I gave him a call and asked me to come to D.C. to serve as his special assistant. And I did that for a couple of years. Then I served as the deputy assistant director for the migratory bird program for about two to three years and somehow got picked and selected for the assistant director for migratory birds. I've been doing that for the past 12 years sitting in this chair. Now I think you asked, you know, what do I do on a daily basis and what does the migratory bird program do? I tell people to make it simple, keep it simple, is that we protect 1,100 species of birds via the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. And we also administered the Baldwin Golden Leaguer Protection Act for those two species as well. So when you walk outside and you hear birds singing, just think about the migratory bird program of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

03:58 Mike Brasher And perhaps, you know, my voice or my face will be in the back of your mind because that's what we do is protect those critters and their habitat for the American public. Jerome, you all do a wonderful job of that. You all are a critical partner for Ducks Unlimited, for so many of our state partners, all of our state partners. The work that we all do is hand in hand. It's a joy to work with you all on all these things. It's complicated, but the reward on the back end of it, knowing that we're doing things together to preserve migratory bird populations and their habitats is super cool. And it's something that's of value to the American public. And one of the things that we hope to do is increase the value that the American public places on migratory birds in those habitats and the conservation needed for it. Some of the other kind of highlights, I want to try to help our audience, a large number of which are going to be waterfowl hunters, kind of see there how the work that you do and the different programs that you're working on kind of connects with them. And so you mentioned the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is sort of the key piece of legislation that drives the work that you all do. The North American Wetlands Conservation Act, the Neotropical Act is also kind of housed in some way in your program. The Duck Stamp program obviously is within there as well. Joint ventures, migratory bird habitat joint ventures are also under the Migratory Bird Program. Monitoring and evaluation programs associated with migratory birds and what our audience is going to be keenly interested in is the breeding population survey, the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey, that's where we get our annual estimates of waterfowl numbers and a lot of other surveys. Harvest regulations and permitting, a whole host of other things. But it's a big group of programs or sort of sub-programs, however you refer to those, and it's been incredibly important for a lot of things that are valuable and have implications for our audience.

06:08 *Jerome Ford * Yeah, thanks for mentioning that. I didn't want to bore people, but it is, as you mentioned, it is complicated, right? We do the population side, we do the habitat side, and there's nothing that we do in the Migratory Bird Program alone. As you often hear me say, it's about partnerships, and we have tons and tons of partners out there that we rely on to help us with accumulating data and analyzing that data. So we can do things like setting the hunt regulations for those folks who are interested in waterfowl hunting and other migratory birds. So thank you for mentioning that, and yet it is complicated for sure.

06:41 Mike Brasher Let's swing it over to Suzanne, and you tell us how you got to where you are today and what all that entails. I grew up with a biologist father and a biologist mother and got to play as a biologist as a kid. I wouldn't say that they were my exact mentors, but I did have mentors through National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, some private museums as I was growing up. I've been in the service since 1993, so I've almost got Jerome. My 30 years was last May. I have a Management degree, Wildlife Management degree from University of North Dakota, a Master's degree from Utah State University. I worked jobs were temporary in Fish and Wildlife Service, working on refuges. I worked up at Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge up in the northwest corner of Colorado. Then I moved to Kansas and worked out of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Both areas were in contact with Ducks Unlimited and their work because they do so many partners out with the Fish and Wildlife Service in the field as well. In 2000, I joined the Migratory Bird Program. I left refuges and moved to the dark side, went to the regional office in Colorado, and I've been here ever since. I started with the stamp program in 1995 as a coordinator, and when the job opened here, I worked with Jerome and his crew of the Duck Stamp Office. I jumped at the chance. I've been here since 2013. It's the only thing, and I keep telling Jerome this, it's the only thing that would bring me to the Washington, D.C. area. Well, that's pretty awesome, Suzanne. Thanks for that introduction. I would love for us to take at least another half hour and explore in more detail your backgrounds, but we can't do that. We got to get on to the topic here, but it was very interesting kind of hearing you introduce each of you introduce your careers because you mentioned some places that are going to be familiar with some of our listeners, whether it be Tinsall, whether it be Quivira, and I think that helps bring a little bit of a personal connection to the voices and the stories that they're going to be hearing and knowing that they have, that the two of you have intersected with some of the places that our listeners value and have spent a lot of time on. So thank you for that, and Suzanne, I want to stay with you on this next question. We'll get right into it, the Duck Stamp program that's going to be the topic of our conversation. For those who may not be aware, and I guarantee the vast majority of our audience is going to be aware of the Duck Stamp, but for the Duck Stamp program, what is that? Well, let me ask you, what is the federal Duck Stamp and what is the program and what all is captured under that program? Because it's more than just the stamp, right? There's a lot that goes into that. Give us the 50,000 foot view.

09:55 Suzanne Fellows 50,000 foot view. Okay, so essentially we make the product that makes the money for conservation with the Duck Stamp. So we have a contest, an annual contest each year. Anytime the artwork or anytime the regulations change or we're asked to do something, we write those regulations for the Duck Stamp. We design with our artists and our stamp printer, we design the stamp, and then we get it out for distribution and sales. And then we collect the money and hand it over to Refuges, who turns around and spends it. We also run the Junior Duck Stamp program, which is sort of our environmental education outreach portion of the program. But it sounds like it's easy, but it's a little bit more involved than that. But that's about the 50,000 foot.

10:53 Mike Brasher Okay, well maybe let's go down a little bit more. Tell us about the history of the Duck Stamp. I believe it was 1934. It's in place because of a piece of legislation. So kind of give us the thumbnail sketch of that for people who may not understand the history, because we have a lot of young listeners that may not really be familiar with that phenomenal history behind this stamp, how it came about.

11:16 Suzanne Fellows Okay, we even have to go farther back from 1934. 1929, the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission was formed, and this commission was in charge of, among other things, trying to purchase property for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Program. However, when they were formed, they did not have any monetary source. Ding Darling, who at the time was working with Fish and Wildlife Service as predecessor, suggested with the help of others, especially hunters and other concerned waterfowl biologists and users, that we have a duck stamp. Something that would be a revenue forming way to tax people who essentially tax people who use the product, the ducks, and use that funding to fund the National Wildlife Refuges that the NBCC would purchase. So 1934, the stories sort of differ, but evidently Mr. Darling just sort of sketched out what a duck stamp would look like. Who've bought cigarettes or alcohol, there's a tax on that, and this is the same type, it's a user tax. And he had to explain to his buddies what it looked like, and so he simply drew out sort of a sketch of what a duck stamp would look like. The program took hold. We changed from a $1 stamp, we now have a $25 stamp, because as you know, this is the 90th year, and prices of habitat have gone up quite a bit. We sell about 1.5 million stamps a year right now. Hunters are our main purchasers. Anybody who purchases, anybody who wants to hunt waterfowl has to purchase a migratory bird duck stamp.

13:17 Mike Brasher It's part of their licensing program, but we do hope that anybody who's interested in conservation will purchase one because the funding goes directly into Habitat. It does not pay for my salary, it does not pay for Jerome's salary, it is strictly for Habitat. Now, Suzanne, I want to back up a little bit on the requirement that waterfowl hunters purchase the stamp. That's required of hunters 16 years and older, right? That is correct, yes. Okay, so if you're 16 years or older, you have to purchase it. Obviously, everyone here would encourage people to buy more than one, and would encourage you to buy it as Suzanne, as you said, regardless of whether you're a waterfowl hunter. So I've heard somewhere that the original sketch that Ding Darling provided was not intended to be what actually went to print. He was kind of upset whenever he realized that folks ran with that and put that into print because he wasn't finished with it. Is that true?

14:14 Katie Burke Sort of. Well, correct, but he did like go and refine it a little bit. Yes. Right. But yes, he did not think what he drew was going to be the stamp. He was just like something like this.

14:25 *Jerome Ford * Okay. It was a concept at first.

14:28 Katie Burke Well, I think it's it is obviously the most classic and one of the most iconic renderings and duck stamps. Obviously, it was the first one. Well, and then another fun fact, this is a duck stamp related, but on the refuge sign, the can the goose is also his, correct? Yeah.

14:46 Mike Brasher I did not know that. I want to talk about purchasing the stamp for just a moment. The where people get that stamp has changed over time. I remember having to go to the post office, Katie, you probably do too, having to go to the post office to buy that stamp. And if you procrastinated too much, you might find yourself in a situation where you go to a post office. You grew up in a small town like both Katie and I did where they didn't have any more. You had a draft 30 minutes. That's right. Then here's Walmart. That's right. So it behooved you to not wait back in the day when it was only available physically as a physical stamp at your post office. That has changed. And now you can access the you can purchase the duck stamp from a number of locations. So Suzanne, talk about that. Where can people buy their duck stamps?

15:35 Suzanne Fellows So right now about two thirds of them are sold through the East stamp program, which is a program that allows anybody 24 seven access to get on and purchase a duck stamp or several from one of the different state agencies that sells them. These state agencies have gone through a vetting process and have essentially they allow their people to purchase a permit that allows them to hunt for 45 days without having the actual stamp in hand. The current law says that you must have a physical stamp. However, the electronic stamp does allow us to allow people for 45 days or up until they receive their mailed stamp to hunt. So that's one way to purchase the stamp. There are also several consignees. There's still some mom and pop stores that sell the stamp. There's still some Walmarts that sell them. About 20 percent of our stamps are sold through U.S. Postal Service, both the U.S. Postal Store, as well as the few stations that still have the actual stamps on them. Some national wildlife refuges also have them available for sale. And then there's our distributor. A big distributor is Amplex and they also have a online as well as a phone in. ABA, American Birding Association, also has them online. So there's several ways. You just Google buy federal duck stamp.

17:13 Mike Brasher You will find several websites that will help you find us. It's far easier to find and purchase duck stamps now than it ever has been. And that's a great thing. They're trying to remove as many of those hurdles. Now there is something the astute listener and astute sort of Ducks Unlimited volunteer in listening to your response there, Susan, may have another question running through their mind. And I'll mention this. I won't ask either of you to comment on this. But there is a piece of legislation that's floating around out there that would eliminate that 45 day validation period. It has not made its way all the way through through Congress, but that is something that our policy folks are working on. And hopefully that is something that that will make it across the finish line here in the coming months. And I suspect some of our policy folks will have some updates on that, maybe even through the through a future episode here. But for people that may have been aware of that and may have heard of that, I wanted to kind of add that little caveat there, eliminate some confusion that may have may have occurred. So still in the works on that piece of legislation. Absolutely. And let's see. OK, anybody can purchase a duck stamp. And through the history of the Cateus kind of starts to get into some of the area that you're really interested in, the history of waterfowl art. I actually was into stamp collecting a bit whenever I was younger. And so duck stamps were a prominent part of that collection. And so the duck stamp itself holds a very special place in the stamp collecting community. And so as a result, there has been a long history, even outside of an interesting conservation of people purchasing this stamp. So, Suzanne, what has been our ability through time to estimate or try to get a handle on the number of people that don't hunt that are buying this stamp? I imagine that's a pretty difficult thing to do. But what can you share in terms of our ability, either historically or now, on the way to partition out why people or what type of people, categories of people are buying the stamp?

19:23 Suzanne Fellows Yeah, that's a difficult one because we don't ask people why they're buying it for. Part of the problem is that so many people buy them for multiple purposes. They might be hunters and bird watchers and stamp collectors and art collectors and want the prints. They buy one for their hunting and one for for their collection. We know based on a harvest reports how many hunters we have each year. We know how many people purchase licenses each year. If you take that number, then approximately two thirds of what is being sold now is sold to hunters. Now, these are people who who have purchased or should have purchased their stamp when they purchase their license. Some a lot of people do buy more than one. A lot of hunters do buy more than one. But there's also the big collectors who will buy more than one. They'll come in and spend ten thousand dollars, which is it's always interesting.

20:33 Mike Brasher So I'd say it's it's about two thirds of the people are using them directly for hunting. Suzanne, one thing just occurred to me as I as I was listening to you. We talked about how the purchasing of a duck stamp is required of all hunters, waterfowl hunters age 16 and older. But there are other benefits that come with the purchase of a duck stamp. Right. Talk about those like entrance to National Wildlife Refuge is for any that may have entrance fees. Talk about that. Some of the other benefits.

21:00 Suzanne Fellows Yeah, that is the other benefit for having a duck stamp is that it allows you access onto any of the fish and wildlife services that have a fee. This past weekend, I was out at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. You want to go around their wildlife loop and having a duck stamp that was the first one of the year helped. You know, it's it it was great just saying, yes, I have a duck stamp. And then we used it out at Bombay Hook out on in Delaware. And it just allows us to not have to pay the three dollar fee, which gives us more money to go and play in their gift shops and support the refuge that way.

21:45 Mike Brasher So I can support both duck stamps and and the refuge itself. I want to transition or I guess build off of that and talk about how the money collected through the duck stamp program as a result of duck stamp purchases is used and how every every person in America benefits from that and how our migratory birds benefit from that. So, Jerome, I think maybe I'll throw this question to you. You can throw it to Suzanne if you want to. But I did want to ask, like, how is the money how is the money used? And let's just start there. What do people need to know about how the money that comes from their purchase of the duck stamp is used and what are the type of of programs it's used to fund?

22:28 *Jerome Ford * Yeah, thanks, mate. I'll start off and always let Suzanne back clean up so she can hit a grand slam for us here. But for for every dollar, you know, that they spend buying a federal duck stamp, we like to let people know that 98 cents of that dollar goes directly to purchase vital habitat or acquire conservation easements for protection. Suzanne mentioned in the National Wildlife Refuge System. However, the process of how duck stamp dollars are used on the ground is actually complicated, as you and I both discussed a little bit earlier. I wish it was simple, but that's why we have Suzanne to kind of help keep us on track and understand those details. But a lot of the sales from the duck stamp are combined with import duties, imported arms and ammunition. And this funding all gets pulled together into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund. Now, the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund is actually administered by the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, which is a seven member commission led by the Secretary of the Interior, which is Deb Haaland right now. And it's that same Migratory Bird Conservation Commission that approves projects proposed for conservation for migratory birds on national wildlife refuges. And as you mentioned earlier, a lot of the NACA habitat, those projects come before this commission to spread the wealth and make sure we have plenty of habitat out there for the migratory birds.

23:50 Mike Brasher And Suzanne, anything to add? Just that the point two cents, or two cents that isn't, it goes for things like paying the U.S. Postal Service to assist us in the contract to print the stamps as well as the contract to sell the stamps, make them available at the U.S. Postal Service. So it's a very, very nice way to get your money's worth of property. I've seen some articles recently, and of course we talk about this often within Ducks Unlimited. I think I heard Adam speaking about it. Maybe it was in response to the first day of sale event and kind of heralding the Duck Stamp program as the most efficient conservation investment that anyone can make. I think we would all like to say Ducks Unlimited is the second best investment that folks can make. But I've also heard Delta Waterfowl say the Duck Stamp program, the most effective and efficient conservation program out there. So there's not any argument among the conservation community about the great efficiency, the phenomenal efficiency that comes from this program. And that's why investing in, which is what you are legitimately doing when you purchase more than one Duck Stamp, you are investing in habitat conservation and its ability to support not just waterfowl, but all migratory birds. And Jerome, you and I kind of talked offline about all the different type of activities that are funded, the different programs where there'd be easements, acquisitions, the other programs that those are run through. That's a conversation that I think has a bit more detail to it. And we'll save that for another guest. And we can really get into the nitty gritty about where and when and how those types of activities occur. But I want to, because I know you love talking about this. You and I have worked together for close to two decades, which is kind of scary for me to say that now. You are passionate about migratory bird conservation. And so I want you to talk about how you view the Duck Stamp, the Duck Stamp program and the habitat work that it does, not just for waterfowl, but all migratory birds. I mean, how much pride do you have that this program is under your leadership?

26:10 *Jerome Ford * Yeah, thanks. I mean, you either set me up for failure or success, because I do love talking about that, no doubt. And we've had to have conversations and help some of our partners understand, yes, we're out here saving wetlands and the most iconic species oftentimes are waterfowl. And those are hunted and people enjoy getting out there doing that. But I've had to say to people there are other species, non-game species, which are using that very same habitat. So you're kind of, well, I'm going to get in trouble for this. You're helping more than one bird at a time. That's great. You shouldn't get in trouble for that. Well, I was going to say something else, but I thought better of it. Right. Another saying, but it is. And I think that's what it's all about. And if I can just make a point here about the loss of three billion birds over 50 years, you look at that, and I know that's another day's discussion, but the species, the birds that are doing the best, their wetland species in particular, waterfowl. So just looking at that, I'm going, wow, we can do the waterfowl, say, and we can do shorebirds and waterbirds and other birds at the same time to bring some of those numbers back. That just made sense to me. And again, so it's just don't get focused on what some people have called the delicious species. But let's look at some of those non-game species as well. And if we can combine those efforts, we can definitely bring birds populations back to some point where they can sustain themselves, whether you're talking about climate change or some people talk about the drying up of the Colorado River or in the climate. It doesn't matter if we put our focus together and talk about birds and other critters as a whole. Look at the landscape as a whole versus just having those one or two species that are important to individuals. But I think collectively, which you and Katie and Suzanne and I talked about today is partnership. Let's figure out how everybody can benefit and we can bring a whole bunch of birds back at the same time. So, yeah, I'm passionate about that. I think it'll work. And we have a lot of partners, whether we're talking about NAPSE or federal partners, kind of feeling the same way. So I'm excited to see what happens here in the next couple, three years as we continue that process of thinking holistically.

28:22 Mike Brasher Thank you, Jerome. NAPSE, you mentioned an acronym. One of the things that I'm on alert for here as host is like, what are the acronyms that I know that our audience is it that NAPSE is North American Bird Conservation Initiative? And we'll have a conversation about that some other time in the future. But but you provided an excellent segue to my last question. And then I'm going to hand it over to Katie for some questions more on sort of the history of the contest and and how how this is such a prominent part of waterfowl art community. You mentioned partnerships. You mentioned growing the visibility of of the great work that occurs as a result of the duck stamp sales and the program. One of those is like partnering with one of those partnership, I guess efforts is the partnership with Bass Pro Shops to host the first day of sale event. How has that helped elevate the visibility of the program? And also things like transitioning to digital. Have we seen have we seen greater visibility? Have we seen kind of greater uptake? Any benefits from those types of things toward this larger goal of of growing support and investments in conservation?

29:30 *Jerome Ford * If it's OK, I'll start out and maybe let Suzanne talk about the transition to digital piece because I can't say enough about Bass Pro and that entire team. You know, it's hard to believe that we still working with Bass Pro for over 20 years partnering with him to produce the first day of sale. And you know, time really flies when you're having fun and you're working with good partners like that. So we totally appreciate all that Bass Pro and and Mr. Johnny has done to amplify the opening day for duck stamp sale. If you think about I know you weren't able to be there with us very long, but there a couple of weeks ago, people just flocked to the first day of sale. And they that was not their intention, but they saw what was going on and they saw a little bit of the artwork and we filled every chair and we do that every single time that we work with Bass Pro because there's so many people in their store doing great things and trying to connect to nature. Because at the end of the day, we're all doing this together and we know that having wild places and wild animals and it's important to all Americans. Think about COVID. What is the one thing that people that increased over that three year period? It was bird watching. People wanted to get out to see birds and got their binoculars and their spotting scope. And I tie this back in to waterfowl because they are some of the largest species that you see. So if you had water in a park and when people were out, you know, making a visit just to try to get a hold of themselves being cooped up from COVID, people started to identify ducks and see different things, different species that had never seen before. So we all know definitely here as we talk about this today, Bass Pro is a private industry that many people in the public may visit and get inspired to go explore the outdoors for the very first time. Now, this may be the first touch point to some people that they have the idea of getting outside the very first time that they make that natural connection to nature. And that means a lot to all of us who work in the conservation field because we need their support to continue to do the great things we're doing for critters all across the country. So that's exciting for me as a partner, but we look forward to and we look forward to continue working with Bass Pro into the future.

31:41 Suzanne Fellows Suzanne on the digital side, how has that helped elevate the program? Because people can purchase the stamp electronically, I think it's made it, there's no excuse not to be able to buy one. It just makes it that much easier for most people to access. And like you said, you don't have to run around trying to find a post office that's A, open and B, has stamps added at, you know, 3 a.m. When you get ready to go out to that blind, you can just do it at home before you leave. You know, the stamp law is such that we don't have a permanent digital stamp at this point. You know, we will work on making it accessible, making it available to everyone, but also extremely available or extremely easy to get to for the hunting population who has to purchase it. We don't want any excuses as to, no, you can't, I can't find one digital, you know, our traditions and our way of doing things due to technology have changed over many years. And we're just trying to go with the flow.

32:58 Mike Brasher But, you know, following regulations and also keeping the tradition of the duck stamp and the artwork out there. That is another great segue for the next set of questions that we're going to ask. But before we do that, we'll take a quick break here. And when we come back, Katie, we'll start off with the questions.

33:36 Katie Burke Welcome back, everybody. I kind of want to now switch over to the contest side of things. And Suzanne, could you kind of for people who aren't familiar with the duck stamp contest, could you let our audience know why it is so unique and what you find most exciting about it?

33:58 Suzanne Fellows That's a hard one. Sorry, 1934, the first stamp was done as a sketch by Mr. Ding Darling. However, for the next several years after that, we had the Fish and Wildlife Services predecessors asked for people specifically to enter a drawing or they specifically asked a person to submit something for the duck stamp. In 1949, Bob Hines, who had done the 1946-1947 stamp, was hired as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff illustrator. And he opened up, essentially started this as a contest. We went from limited invited people to anyone across the country, any adult from the U.S. with U.S. citizenship. I believe that we can say that thank you to Mr. Bob Hines for making it that open contest. Now, I say it's an open contest, but it has rules. It is very regulated, and that is one of the things that makes it unique. It's the only federally regulated contest in the United States, art contest in the United States. The regulations are published in the Code of Federal Regulations. And if we want to change any of the rules, we have to go through the whole rule writing process. But the artwork is essentially, it lays out, the regulation lays out which species we can choose and how many judges we have, what our judges qualifications have to be. And then we have our judges have to choose the stamp that will make the best for both the duck hunters and the art collectors. It is biologically correct.

36:00 Katie Burke So, yeah, you answered one of my questions that I was going to I was actually going to skip over, but you answered it. So I want to go back because one of the things I noticed, I've noticed a long time ago is those years before 1949 is a heavy hitter of waterfowl artists. It is one name after another. It goes from Bishop to Laszlo to, you know, and I always wondered why. And that makes sense. They were selected because, yeah, it does move right through them. So I would like to know what that first contest, how was that first few contests, what were those like for people? I mean, now we have like the big documentary, you can kind of see everything what the contest is like.

36:41 Suzanne Fellows Well, what were those early competitions like? Now, I wasn't around then. Right. That was true. Of course. But you heard. The first contest, the first open contest had like 63 people who entered. So it was small and people were allowed to enter more than one entry. OK. There were different size that the artwork could be, different requirements that, you know, species wise. I don't know if the early contest asked for a specific species. Right now, we do limit it to five or fewer species of the eligible Native American, Native North American species per year. And we have it very strict at the seven by nine size. We get about 200 entries a year. We had at one point in time, the contest was held over several days because they get 2000 entries. And each time you have a contest and something happens that people either don't like or do like, the rules might get changed. You know, for for instance, we have a very specific requirement that it has to be a live portrayal of a live duck. And that came through many years of dead duck and a decoy rather than a live duck. So each time we have something that forces us to change, we we change the regulations to get from 2000 entries down to just one. It used to be that everybody would enter. There was no cost associated with it. We now have a cost associated with it to help. Well, first of all, it it does help make sure that people understand that this is serious. This is a is a a real contest. It is worth putting your time and effort into. We don't pay our artists when they win. Right now, our artists become our ambassadors for a year and our artists do lots of trips with us. They were out at first day of sale. They were out at Easton Waterfowl Festival. You know, some of these other big waterfowl festivals and art contests. But the artwork doesn't get them any money. There have been times when wildlife art has gone through the roof as far as popularity. At that point in time, they have made some funds out of it. But it's basically their stamp that makes funds for conservation.

39:32 Katie Burke I mean, and it does give them some. There is like some gravitas on winning. So they may not make money on that particular work, but then their name is out there. And so they do get something from winning. Yes, there's definitely incentive.

39:49 Suzanne Fellows I would like to think that that is is sort of the special thing for them is to to be part of the conservation partnership, because we make, you know, thirty five million dollars a year off of a stamp that an artist has done.

40:03 *Jerome Ford * So, Katie, I had a tidbit that Suzanne taught me that I didn't know. The book is normally here on my desk, but the very first contest, they were held here in the main interior building down in the auditorium. And most folks don't realize that. But Suzanne educated me on that a few years ago. And I don't know what year it was. We start taking it on the road because we want to get more people involved. But that's just a little historical fact that most people don't know. I didn't know that. Yeah, right, right downstairs. Yeah.

40:35 Katie Burke Wow. I did not know that. So what I'd like to go back a little bit, Suzanne, you can kind of explain how some of those criteria chosen like the species each year, how they're chosen, the qualifications for the judges, just kind of walk us through how those things are selected.

40:53 Suzanne Fellows So the species each year, we've tried to get our artists to be part of the conservation project. We've sent our artists about three years worth of warning because they like to develop their own pictures. So we try to set a list based on sort of hunter preference. You know, obviously, canvasbacks and mallards and Canada geese and wood ducks, they have a huge appeal. But we don't want it to just be the canvasback or the mallard stamp. So we get in some less known species as well. We try to choose a species list that incorporates ducks, geese and swans. You know, so we hit all the three major groups of waterfowl. We try to make sure that they're found something, one of those species at least is found in every part of the country. You know, it's not fair to just do surf scoters and sea ducks. The people in the center of the U.S. would have a little bit of a problem with that. They might never see those. However, we also want people to understand that there are some other ducks that are specialized to certain areas. You know, the black bellied whistling duck, for example, a few years ago, you know, something from the southeast of the U.S. It's kind of a well, let's see what haven't we seen for a while and what would people like to see choice? Since we see a lot of the same species recycled over and over again, we want to make sure that there's a good group of five that they can choose from. As far as the judges qualifications, we have to this is written in the regulations as well. We have to have somebody who knows waterfowl anatomy. We need to have somebody who understands that this is going to be a stamp because often we get this wonderful artwork. Just wouldn't make a good stamp. And when you're talking about taking a painting that's seven by nine down to one and a half by two inches, that's you have to understand that this is for a stamp.

43:03 Katie Burke What's going to work on a stamp? Right. And just to add that, because that comes into the size of the actual waterfowl, right? So is there like is there a certain percentage that waterfowl needs to take up in that image for it to look as like you think about that?

43:18 Suzanne Fellows Yeah, well, so the regulation states that the waterfowl, the eligible species has to be the primary focal point of that drawing. So it does lead to having a large waterfowl and maybe some habitat on the side. But yeah, that has to be the main viewpoint. We have had rules in the past that have had a specific theme that has required other things to be part of it, which does become a problem when you talk about scale.

43:51 Mike Brasher Is there any species of waterfowl that hasn't yet appeared on the stamp? Sorry to take you back. I'm supposed to know the answer to this. And I'm also trying to think of what was the one that the last one that kind of checked the box of me. And let's put Mexican duck out of the equation here because there's some kind of dispute there. There's still discussions when that's going to be recognized.

44:14 Katie Burke Tell me if I'm right, because I just interviewed. Well, I interviewed Joe after the first day of sale and he won for the speckled eider. Was that the last spectacle spectacle? Sorry, excuse me, biologist.

44:27 Suzanne Fellows That was a fantastic painting that he did. However, his black scoter was the last one.

44:34 Katie Burke He said it was like you all did a contest where you just did the scoter. That was what he was saying.

44:39 Suzanne Fellows He just did the scoter so you could check the box. And it came down to like the ridges on the bill of his black scoter, which is why we have somebody who knows waterfowl anatomy as the judge as being so important. There is one other species now that we have separated cackling geese from Canada geese. There is a possibility the cackling goose will show up as on the list as the species that hasn't been chosen.

45:08 Katie Burke Would you do another one where you just did that species so it made a stamp or would you all do the five? I don't know if you can answer that question. I probably will. Maybe.

45:19 Suzanne Fellows Maybe it could happen. The regulation says five or fewer species eligible each year. So it could be. I think that would not make as interesting a contest as having a mix of species. But that may be a Jerome suggestion.

45:37 *Jerome Ford * I think we'll give it a chance. If it seems to struggle a little bit, we can always adjust the rules to give it an even greater chance. We're open to that.

45:49 Katie Burke Okay. So to finish the judges, so you said to know the stamp and they need to have a biology background.

45:56 Suzanne Fellows Was there anything else that qualifies them? Yes. They need to have a fine art background as well. They have to have credentials as an artist. And then they have to have shown that they are a conservation worker, partner, somebody who from like Ducks Unlimited and Delta and some of these other groups are perfect conservation partners. And then the last one is that they understand Duck Stamp is used for the sporting, hunting, waterfowling. It's not just a pretty postage stamp. It's what the background is behind the stamp. So among our panel, we have to have one person who is the expert in each of those. And quite often our panel has, there's a lot of overlap. So we have people that know both waterfowl ID as well as our artists.

46:52 Mike Brasher Those are the basic five. And is there, are there deliberations that occur or I guess consultation that occurs among the judges at any point in time in the contest?

47:01 Suzanne Fellows There is the opportunity for questions. We keep the judges are supposed to make all their decisions on their own. However, we do have a waterfowl biologist who is there to assist if there are questions about does that look right? Is that habitat and plumage right for this time of the year? They they're not supposed to discuss it, what their answers are, but they are supposed to all hear the same thing.

47:34 *Jerome Ford * So Suzanne, if I could jump in when the scoring happens and I'm learning to Suzanne is the expert, y'all. I learned every contest right when we bring back some of the art, right? You know, when the scoring is very, how does that work? Suzanne, do the artists talk to one other there or or how does that piece work?

47:52 Suzanne Fellows You know what I mean? So what Jerome you're referring to is between the first and second rounds. Yes. So the first round is in and out. Basically, if you have to have three ends in order to progress onto the next. However, there are, you know, after you've gone through 200 pieces, there are some that an artist might just like or excuse me, a judge might just like enough to want it to have it go into the second round. And and that's on their own. They can bring back up to five pieces per judge. And so if Harry Judge likes this piece and it doesn't get enough to go through to get the ends, he could bring it back around to.

48:36 Katie Burke I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, when you look at something like a piece of work like that, like you might they might see something in hopes that they that other judges see it at a second time. Right. And you do get to look at it to a scale size. Right. You'll have something to shrink it down.

48:52 Suzanne Fellows Yes, we have reduction glasses, which are essentially are reverse magnifiers. Right. OK. Use those. The other thing that we've found is that if you look at it with your your iPhone about that size is what is a good example as well.

49:09 Katie Burke Look at technology coming in. Suzanne. So I'm actually last few questions. I want to change the topic towards the junior duck stamp program. So could you kind of give us a background, the junior duck stamp program and what the goal of that program is and how it has also evolved.

49:28 Suzanne Fellows So the junior duck stamp program was started back in the late 1980s. It is an opportunity for students in kindergarten through 12th grade to learn about wetlands and waterfowl and then draw a duck stamp. It has two main goals. First of all, to get kids out there and learning about wetlands and waterfowl and just learning the beauty of the birds as well as the wetlands. The second goal is to make sure that we have a generation, a citizen coming up that understand the importance of the duck stamp. And after we get about 25,000 students give or take a year, it's always a surprise to me how many students say, oh, yeah, I went through the program as a kid. I got a green ribbon or something. Because we do have a contest at the end that allows each state to honor students who have sent in really good work or really unique drawings of their different ducks. That's great. So do you think or do you believe that Junior Duck Stamp has helped inspire future waterfowl artists and how so? I believe so. I believe we have about 20 current artists who place really highly in the contest at the federal adult level who have come through the program. One of them, Rebecca Nastav, won her stamp in 2006, 2007. She's gotten up to second place. She is an extremely wonderful supporter of the program, not just entering art every year, but also assisting with questions. And she's a good spokesman for the program. Christine Clayton is another student. In a couple of years, we'll see probably Madison Graham. We've had several students that they've done more than just enter and win the Duck Stamp, the Junior Duck Stamp. They've become partners. They are our voice out there as well. Will Madison be the first one to be competing against her father or parents? Actually, Christine Clayton and Matt Clayton.

51:48 Mike Brasher Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. I have a question here. Have we ever had a woman win the contest? And who was that? Three winners.

51:59 Suzanne Fellows Three, okay. The last was 2016? Yes, with Jennifer Miller from New York. We had Sherry Russell Mullen from California. And then we've had the first one was Nancy Howe. And so we've only had three women. I would love to see more women enter. After each entry that the women have done, we saw an uptick in number of women who've entered the following year. So I'd love to have more women enter.

52:31 Mike Brasher And the Junior Duck Stamp seems to show that trend continuing because there's a lot of females in the Junior Duck Stamp program. Yeah, that was one of the reasons why I was asking. I thought I remembered observing that trend at the Junior Duck Stamp contest. But I could not remember the regular contest.

52:48 Katie Burke So can you tell us how people and organizations can promote the Junior Duck Stamp program? Is there ways that they can help with that, with the competitions and those programs that you provide?

53:00 Suzanne Fellows First off, if they're interested in supporting the program, the only funding we get for it is through the purchase of the stamp. We have a coordinator in each of the 50 states, D.C. and our territories. Our coordinators are always looking for helpers, either as a judge or a volunteer to help get the word out, help with the contest. So there are a lot of different ways that they just want to get online and Google, I keep saying Google, Google Junior Duck Stamp state coordinators. They can find the list of people who are involved in the program. Get in touch with them. We would love to have their assistance, even if it's just talking to their kids, their grandkids, their neighborhood kids. There's so much they can do.

53:48 Katie Burke And how would you buy the Junior Duck Stamp program? Is it the same as the federal? The same as the federal as far as you can get them through the U.S. Postal Service, the postal store, our partner Amplex, and then some of the Junior or some of the National Wildlife Refugees also have them. So what changes and advancement do you envision for these programs for the contest in the future? And is there anything else about these programs you would like to mention before we close?

54:16 Suzanne Fellows I would hope that we would make it to 100 years, which would be the 1934 or the 2034, 2035 stamp. Getting ready for our 91st stamp coming up in September. I'd love to see more people support the program. We had a great shout out from social media through TikTok as well as from John Oliver's show, as well as the Million Dollar Duck. Anything like that that promotes the program in a positive light is great. It's a labor of love. These artists put a lot of heart and soul into it. Unfortunately, there's only one winner each year. And I would just like to see people enjoy it. They don't have to be there in person. They can watch it online or take part in one of the other events where they get to meet the artists and show their appreciation for the artists. They also show their appreciation by purchasing a stamp.

55:16 *Jerome Ford * And Katie, I always follow Suzanne. She's our leader, right? And one thing we're discussing, Suzanne and I have the last year and a half or two years, is trying to get more underserved communities involved. And it's what she just talked about. We can do that virtually via a lot of the social media platforms. We can bring the contest to them versus having them try to come to a contest. We're trying to work out those details. What does that look like so we can get more young folks and people, period, across the country involved by making sure that we provide the contest to those people who are interested and wherever they are across the globe. So we're working on that. And we'll get it figured out here in maybe the next year or so.

55:57 Mike Brasher And Suzanne, thank you so much to both of you for being here, for joining us for this incredibly important message. Jerome, you're an incredibly busy person. It's difficult to get any of your time, let alone an hour of your time. And you've been very generous with it. We, on behalf of everyone at Duck's Unlimited, we appreciate your time, we appreciate your partnership in everything we do. It was great having you with us, Jerome. Thank you. Appreciate it. And Suzanne, same to you. Thank you for everything that you do in the Duck Stamp program. It was great to meet you a couple of weeks ago. Sorry I didn't get to stick around and chat a bit more. But this has been wonderful. If folks want to learn more about the Duck Stamp program, I'm sure they can go online and search US Fish and Wildlife Service Duck Stamp program. One of the top hits will hopefully be the Fish and Wildlife Service's webpage that tells you all about it. Katie, any final words?

56:47 Katie Burke No, just thank you both so much. Thank you for having us.

56:50 Mike Brasher Yes, absolutely. Thank you. A very special thanks to our guests on today's episode. Jerome Ford, Assistant Director for the US Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Program, and Suzanne Fellows, Manager of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Duck Stamp Program. We greatly appreciate their time and all they're doing for migratory bird habitat conservation. As always, we thank our producer who does a wonderful job with these episodes. And we thank you, the listener, for your time and for your commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.