Ducks Unlimited, Inc.

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Ducks Unlimited, Inc.

INCORPORATED IN 1937

HABITAT FOR 2000 AND BEYOND

SPORTING ORIGINS

North America was troubled by more than the Great Depression in the early part of the 1930s; a continental drought was depleting waterfowl populations at the same time. In the preceding decades, the U.S. government had begun to pass laws to protect migratory birds through such measures as hunting limits and establishment of refuges.

In October 1930 a group led by Joseph P. Knapp established More Game Birds in America, Inc., a foundation to promote scientific conservation of these species. Borrowing from the then radical gamekeeping ideas of St. Louis attorney and gamekeeper advocate Dwight C. Huntington, More Game Birds aimed to go beyond protecting naturally occurring animals from excessive hunting, to encourage propagation of these species in the wild.

Knapp, considered the driving force behind the creation of DU, had inherited a fortune and become successful in New York’s printing and publishing industry, eventually gaining control of Collier’s Weekly and putting together the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. He was an avid duck hunter who lived part of the year in North Carolina, and had already set up another conservation agency, the Knapp Foundation Inc.

Other founders of More Game Birds included Arthur Bartley, an associate of Huntington’s son; Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist J. N. “Ding” Darling (who later became a vocal critic of Knapp); and John A. Hartwell, president of the New York Academy of Medicine.

The pioneering International Wild Duck Census of 1935 found that most waterfowl in North America were spawned on the vast prairies of Canada, so it was there that the first conservation efforts were centered. The waterfowl population was then estimated to number just 42 million (an earlier federal count put the number even lower). The federal Duck Stamp program provided funds for establishing refuges in the United States only.

INCORPORATED IN 1937

More Game Birds formed a successor organization to restore the Canadian breeding grounds. Ducks Unlimited, Inc., (DU) was established in Washington, D.C., in January 1937; More Game Birds transferred its assets to the new group three years later. (The organization’s name is said to be a play on the “Limited” designation that usually follows corporate names in Canada.) Hartwell was DU’s first president, though he was in poor health and served but a short time. By the time of DU’s first meeting in March 1938, the organization claimed 6,270 members. Revenues were about $90,500, less than one-sixth of the original yearly goal.

Ducks Unlimited (Canada), the organization that would take the funds raised in the United States to work north of the 49th parallel, was formed in 1938. Its first general manager was Tom Main, while Judge W. G. Ross served as its first president. Work on the first restoration project soon commenced. This involved setting up a couple of dams to regulate water at Winnipeg’s Big Grass Marsh. DU finished more than 100 projects affecting more than a million acres by 1943; the estimated waterfowl population had grown to about 140 million birds. Wartime shortages slowed the organization somewhat, and there was some disruption of personnel. Arthur Bartley, then general manager, was called to duty in 1943, and the next year DU’s New York headquarters was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy. Nevertheless, the group saw its revenues increase from $185,000 in 1942 to $400,000 in 1945.

Wetter weather helped lift the waterfowl population to pre–Dust Bowl levels in the 1950s. DU’s fund-raising reached new heights, exceeding $600,000 in 1956, when the group had about 25,000 members. DU had begun its first marine project, on Prince Edward Island, in 1951. By the end of the decade, it had nearly 500 projects in Canada.

INCREASING FUND-RAISING AND MEMBERSHIP

The group’s headquarters moved from New York City to Chicago in 1965 in a project funded by the organization’s president, Henry Schmidt. The next year, annual fund-raising exceeded $1 million.

DU’s ranks swelled in the 1970s as the group mobilized a massive army of volunteers. Membership grew from 50,000 to five times that by the end of the decade. Fund-raising passed the $10 million mark in the middle of the decade. DU Canada, for so many years the spender of funds from the United States, started raising money itself in 1974.

The group expanded its geographic influence at the same time. In the early 1970s it began wetlands projects south of the border, establishing Ducks Unlimited de Mexico, A.C. The country was important to many waterfowl as a wintering site.

There was a blossoming of DU’s relationship with Hollywood, as Bing Crosby and John Wayne participated in films celebrating the organization. Another screen legend, Clark Gable, had been an early member.

The 1980s saw a return of drought conditions and a subsequent reduction in game bird populations. A number of groups, including DU, came together to create the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in 1986. This aimed to restore populations to benchmarks set in the previous decade. In the same year, pioneering legislation was passed providing incentives for farmers to set aside marginally productive land for ten years or more. DU stepped up its policy efforts with the addition of regional offices in Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1984 and Sacramento, California, three years later.

A lobbying office was established in Washington, D.C., in 1989. In the same year, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act was passed, providing federal matching funds for a variety of environmental projects. This landmark legislation was renewed in 2002.

DU relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Memphis in 1992, two years after setting up a regional office in Jackson, Mississippi. Its membership numbered about 510,000 in the United States and 140,000 in Canada.

COMPANY PERSPECTIVES

The vision of Ducks Unlimited is wetlands sufficient to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow and forever.

The organization had begun arranging easements for property owners who wanted to dedicate their land to conservation while maintaining ownership. Nevertheless, duck numbers fell to their lowest number yet recorded, about 30 million. Wet weather helped populations recover in the mid-1990s. A migration of 80 million ducks in 1996 was the largest since the 1970s; in 1999, an estimated 105 million were counted. DU added a regional office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, toward the latter part of the decade.

HABITAT FOR 2000 AND BEYOND

The group’s Habitat 2000 program, begun in the mid-1990s, raised nearly $1 billion by 2001, and saw the number of members increase to 757,000. DU was on its way to protecting its ten millionth acre. The ducks continued to face challenges. Another drought reduced breeding populations on Canadian prairies. Lack of rainfall also caused some to remain in the north.

Like other nonprofit groups, DU lent its name to a variety of goods in order to raise royalties. In 2004, the organization took over licensing of images from the federal government’s Duck Stamp program for consumer products.

DU budgeted millions to repair damage to Gulf Coast habitats caused by the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. However, in the spring following the storm, its biologists reported that the storms had improved the ecosystem by opening up the marshes and providing an ample food supply.

DU had $196.1 million in revenue and support in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2005. The group claimed 750,000 members. More than three-quarters of them were in the United States. There were 3,665 local chapters in the United States and Canada. About 150 of the group’s 650 or so professional employees worked at the Memphis headquarters. (DU claimed to have more waterfowl biologists on staff than any other public or private institution.)

DU kicked off another ambitious campaign, called Wetlands for Tomorrow, in 2006. This program aimed to raise $1.7 billion over the next several years in what was billed as the largest conservation campaign ever.

In 2007, its 70th anniversary year, DU was urging Congress to maintain protection of native grasslands in the Great Plains. A longstanding program that compensated farmers for allowing marginal areas to return to wetland was under threat from increasing land values and pressure to raise crops for biofuels.

Frederick C. Ingram

PRINCIPAL COMPETITORS

Audubon Society; National Wildlife Federation; The Nature Conservancy; Pheasants Forever Inc.; Sierra Club; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

KEY DATES

1930:: More Game Birds in America Foundation is established as major drought dries up water-fowl nesting grounds.
1937:: Ducks Unlimited, Inc., is established to fund conservation projects in Canadian breeding grounds.
1951:: Group begins first marine project on Prince Edward Island.
1965:: Chicago becomes new headquarters for the organization.
1966:: Annual fund-raising exceeds $1 million.
1974:: DU begins wetlands projects in Mexico.
1992:: Headquarters shifts from Chicago to Memphis.
1996:: Annual migration of 80 million ducks is largest since the 1970s.
2006:: Wetlands for Tomorrow campaign is launched, aiming to raise $1.7 billion within seven years.