For nearly three-quarters of a century waterfowl hunters have sought to preserve an abundance of ducks by protecting portions of the northern prairies, the pothole country celebrated as the most productive duck-breeding habitat on the North American continent. This effort began in the 1930s, when a terrible drought struck the northern plains, reducing the number of shallow potholes and causing fall flights to diminish to record low numbers. The thin migrations prompted two developments – passage of a law that required all U.S. waterfowl hunters purchase a federal duck stamp, the proceeds of which were to be used to buy waterfowl habitat, and the creation of Ducks Unlimited, a private organization dedicated to protecting, restoring and maintaining Canadian habitat. Both were believed necessary because federal law prohibited U.S. duck-stamp money from crossing the border. Now, three-quarters of a century later, it is time to ask: How much duck-breeding habitat have we permanently secured on the northern prairies? We begin by looking at the money raised for the purpose of protecting, restoring and maintaining habitat. We start in 1934, the first year U.S. waterfowl hunters were required to purchase a federal duck stamp to hunt waterfowl. We will compare total federal duck stamp revenues with funds raised by Ducks Unlimited since its founding in 1937. Figure 1. Purchases of U.S. duck stamps have totaled approximately $700 million since hunters first were required to buy them in 1934. By comparison, Ducks Unlimited has raised more than $2.5 billion since its founding in 1937. Source: USFWS and DU. As you can see, Ducks Unlimited has raised over $2.5 billion, more than three and one-half times the $700 million the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has raised through the sale of federal ducks stamps. Now, let us compare the northern-prairie acres permanently protected by each organization, either by outright purchase or perpetual easement. Figure 2. U.S. duck-stamp money has purchased, or protected through permanent easement, 2.7 million acres of waterfowl habitat in the Dakotas and eastern Montana, while DU has permanently preserved approximately 357,000 acres, most of which is in Canada. Source: USFWS and DU. As you can see, Ducks Unlimited’s permanently protected northern plains waterfowl habitat totals less than 360,000 acres, while the service has acquired 2.7 million acres. (DU’s total consists of approximately 330,000 acres in Canada and 27,000 acres in the northern U.S.) The dollars and acres data provide an astonishing insight: Ducks Unlimited has raised 78 percent of the waterfowl-habitat money, an amount totaling more than $2.5 billion, but has purchased only 12 percent of the permanently protected duck habitat on the northern prairies. Put another way, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has raised only 22 percent of the total habitat dollars, yet has purchased 88 percent of the permanently protected northern prairie waterfowl conservation acreage. (These lands include the refuges and waterfowl production areas that you encounter frequently while motoring across the Dakotas and eastern Montana.) It raises a key question: How could the “poor child” permanently preserve for our children and grandchildren far more habitat than the “rich child”? Before answering this question, we must issue a cautionary note. It would be wrong to infer that Ducks Unlimited spent all $2.5 billion on the Canadian prairies or that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spent all $700 million on the U.S. portion of the northern prairies. Although DU initially focused its early efforts in Canada, mostly in the mid-continent region, in 1984 it expanded its jurisdiction to include the United States. By the same token, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not spend all of its duck-stamp dollars on the northern prairies. A significant sum was spent to acquire refuges in other areas of the country, especially on the wintering grounds. Nonetheless, DU’s extraordinary wealth forces one to conclude that the organization did not lack for money to purchase outright or permanently preserve through perpetual easement vast tracts of northern-prairie duck-breeding habitat. Why, then, has it permanently protected such a miniscule amount of habitat? The answer in part is that in its early years DU adopted a rent-don’t-buy management policy. It argued that renting land was cheaper than buying and this would enable its dollars to have maximum landscape impact. This might be true – for the short term. A second factor involved its effort to drought-proof the prairies, a false hope born of the Dust Bowl devastation. This initially prompted DU to focus on large, crown-owned marshes. It spent millions on water-control structures to stabilize water levels. These crown lands were largely staging or molting marshes. DU’s work did little to increase juvenile productivity. Pothole complexes were largely ignored, even though they remained the most highly productive wetlands. By the late 1970s, the big marsh emphasis was coming to an end. DU either had already developed the marsh, or local residents opposed DU efforts to develop the few remaining undeveloped large marshes. It continued to ignore pothole complexes, although in recent years this has begun to change. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was quietly purchasing or acquiring through permanent easement parcel after parcel on the northern plains until it had accumulated 2.7 million acres of waterfowl habitat throughout the U.S. prairie pothole region – a total that includes approximately 1.5 million acres of wetlands and 1.2 million acres of nesting uplands. These habitats are permanently protected. Thus, DU members face a decision. Should they continue to encourage the organization’s rent-don’t-buy policy? Or should they argue for a change of focus to begin permanently acquiring duck-breeding habitat on a major scale? As it is now, future conservation historians will conclude that DU spent an enormous amount of money to temporarily safeguard or alter habitat, but permanently preserved very little to provide homes for ducks far into the future or serve as long-lasting, on-the-ground testimony to the organization’s efforts.