Get a Lick of This!

Duck stamps are going up! The Senate passed a bill this week that increases the cost of these pretty stamps from $15 to $25. The price hike is the first since 1991, but the extra tenner is one well spent. For each dollar expended on the stamp, which serves as a hunting license, 98 cents goes to the leasing or purchasing of wetlands by the federal government. And it’s not just hunters who can buy them. Anyone can purchase one and use the stamp to get into any of the country’s 561 national wildlife refuges. What a deal! (Just don't try to use it to mail a letter—if you even do that sort of thing anymore.) 

Since its inception in 1934, duck stamp sales have generated more than $750 million and led to the preservation of six million acres. The proposed $25 stamp would allow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect an additional 17,000 acres each year. If President Obama signs the new stamp into law (which he is expected to do), there will only be one question left: Are you a mallard man or more of a wood-duck woman?

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