PORTLAND – If you’re a wildlife enthusiast and still need to purchase your hunting license, look no further than your local Post Office, where the Federal Duck Stamps are currently on sale.

The U.S. Department of the Interior issued the $15 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp in June for the 2012-2013 waterfowl hunting season.

A Federal Duck Stamps acts as a federal hunting license for all forms of waterfowl in the United States. They are not valid for postage.

Originally created in 1934 as the federal licenses required for hunting migratory waterfowl, Federal Duck Stamps have a larger purpose today. Ninety-eight cents of every dollar generated by the sales of Federal Duck Stamps goes directly to purchase or lease wetland habitat for protection in the National Wildlife Refuge System. The stamp also serves as an entrance pass to these National Wildlife Refuges, where admission is normally charged.

In the years since its enactment, the Federal Duck Stamp Program has become one of the most popular and successful conservation programs ever initiated. Some 635,000 hunters paid $1 each for the first stamps, which went on sale August 22, 1934. Since then, the price has gradually risen to the current $15 and the number of stamps bought climbed to a peak of 2.4 million in 1970-71. Today, some 1.7 million stamps are sold each year.

Thanks in large part to hunters and conservationists, Duck Stamps sales have raised more than $750 million, which has been used to buy 5.3 million acres of wetland for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Many of the more than 545 national wildlife refuges have been paid for all or in part by Duck Stamp money.

Duck Stamps have become popular with stamp collectors as well. A collector who had bought each stamp the year it was issued would have paid a total of $394 by 2002. That investment would now be worth well over $5,000. Stamps issued before 1941 are exceedingly rare since the law originally specified that unsold stamps were to be destroyed the following year. Although the majority of excess stamps are still destroyed annually, the United States Postal Service, continues to sell each year's stamp for 3 years.

Waterfowl are not the only wildlife to benefit from Federal Duck Stamps. Numerous other birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians have also prospered because of habitat protection made possible by the program. Further, an estimated one third of the nation's endangered and threatened species find food or shelter in refuges preserved by Duck Stamp funds.

Joseph Hautman of Plymouth, Minnesota, won the 2011 Federal Duck Stamp Contest with his acrylic painting of a single wood duck. His art was made into the 2012-2013 Federal Duck Stamp. Hautman has previously won the contest three times, in 1991, 2001 and 2007. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service produces the Federal Duck Stamp, which provides critical funds for conserving wetlands for the benefit of wildlife and the enjoyment of people.

“The stamp itself is widely known as one of this nation’s most successful and effective conservation programs,” said Assistant Director Jerome Ford of the Service’s Migratory Bird Program. “This connection of generations through the traditions of wildlife art and conservation is what makes the Federal Duck Stamp Program so successful.”

To learn more about the Federal Duck Stamps, visit http://www.fws.gov/duckstamps/.

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