Hi, this is Nikki Balmonte, executive director of the ABA.

I just want to take a moment to thank you for supporting the ABA's nesting season appeal.

The funds raised through this campaign helps support our young birder programs and provide resources to build even better experiences.

You have inspired our youth to discover the joy of birding.

Thank you and please enjoy this episode

of our podcast. Hello and welcome to the American Birding podcast from the American

Birding Association. I'm Nate Swick. It is at long last duck stamp season, the migratory bird hunting and conservation stamp,

which we all know is the duck stamp, is out now as of June 24. Birds have had a somewhat

mixed history with the stamp. I know there has been in the past a movement to move non-consumptive

conservationists over to a different stamp, one that isn't

associated with waterfowl hunting, which some burders understandably take issue with.

I certainly sympathize I've gone back and forth on it over the years.

I do wish that there was a conservation stamp, so-called birder stamp, that is explicitly for non-hunters, not just burders, but also

maybe fishermen, photographers, wildlife watchers more generally, maybe even something that feeds

directly into the same pot of money, which is certainly significant. Because the duck stamp

really is, and there's no two ways about it,

unparalleled in terms of being a hyper-efficient means of getting money to the people who will use

it to do good things for wildlife and birds. There's practically no overhead, famously something

like 98% of the purchase price goes to land acquisition via the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

I feel like we're obligated to say that when we talk about the duck stamp.

The track record is real, and it is breathtaking.

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