Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana. Each spring, melting snows fill thousands of lakes, marshes and potholes where waterfowl return to feed and rear young. The acquisition program has two parts. Fee purchases protect larger, more permanent wetlands by putting nucleus areas in public ownership. Under the second part of the program, seasonal or temporary wetlands around nucleus areas remain in private ownership, but are protected by purchase of easements under which owners agree not to drain, fill or burn their wetlands. All such acquisitions are financed through the sale of Federal duck stamps and by the advance made by Congress on future stamp sales. Last year, more than two million of these stamps were sold, the highest figure since 1959, and collections exceeded $6 million. To provide the country with an early warning system for its environmental ills; to help protect the multitude of wildlife forms that are man's neighbors on this Earth; and thus to reinforce the link between land and life-this is BSFW's mission for the Seventies. |