Byline: Dick Nelson Outdoors correspondent
The plight of America's waterfowl is older then most waterfowl hunters. The once-enormous populations of ducks and geese had fallen on hard times back in 1934.
Actually, the decline began decades earlier then that, as millions of acres of prime waterfowl habitat were drained for agriculture. The huge flocks steadily dwindled, and their numbers were further reduced by indiscriminate shooting and market hunting. Even nature joined the onslaught when the mid-continent was ravaged by a drought of historic proportions.
But 1934 also marked the dawn of a new era for the nation's waterfowl. In July of that year, Congress created a revenue-raising device that was popularly known as the Federal "Duck Stamp."
Every waterfowl hunter 16 years of age or older was required to purchase a stamp annually. Recognizing the stamp's value for wildlife and as a collector's item, a growing number of non-hunting conservationists and stamp collectors also began to buy them. To date, more than 300 million "Duck Stamp" dollars had gone to preserve some 3.5 million acres of precious wetland habitat - habitat that formed the backbone of the world's greatest system of waterfowl refuges.
Before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (aided by Duck Stamp revenues) stemmed the alarming …
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