The Wild Duck Chase

Competitive duck painting “borders on . . . obsession,” making this book about the Federal Duck Stamp Contest “a surprisingly compelling read” (Los Angeles Times).

The basis for the documentary film, The Million Dollar Duck, Martin J. Smith’s The Wild Duck Chase reveals the peculiar world of the only juried art competition run by the US government. Hatched during the Great Depression, the Federal Duck Stamp Program requires hunters to buy stamps to validate a hunting license, with proceeds going toward wetland conservation. Though the first stamps were designed by noted wildlife artists, a contest for new illustrators opened to the public in 1949. Over the years, the competition has attracted artists from across the nation and the stamp has generated more than $1 billion to purchase or lease more than 6 million acres of waterfowl habitat in the United States.

Smith takes readers behind the scenes of the contest to discover personalities like the Hautman brothers of Minnesota, painters with a success record that rivals that of the New York Yankees. Smith additionally probes the intense debate between rural hunters and the urban conservationists who condemn shooting wildlife for sport. There’s also the high-stakes drama between the artists competing and the judges who decide which work will be awarded the honor of appearing on the coveted, collectible stamp.

A front row seat to an arcane realm where talent, environmental activism, and migratory waterfowl come together to create big money and not a few controversies, The Wild Duck Chase gives this fascinating, little-known piece of Americana its due.

“Smartly written, wonderful. . . . Highly recommended!” ―Douglas Brinkley, author of Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America