Wikimedia Commons/U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Northeast Region
$54 Million Buys Land at Four Refuges
Every time a hunter buys a $25 Federal Duck Stamp, most of that money goes straight to protecting wetlands.
On September 18, 2025, the Department of the Interior announced where $54 million of that funding is headed: four national wildlife refuges in Utah, Tennessee, and Louisiana will add 21,737 acres of new habitat.
The program behind this purchase has been running since 1934, and the story of how it started involves a president, a cartoonist, and a crisis that was killing millions of birds.
Wikimedia Commons/finchlake2000
Upper Ouachita Gets $35 Million
The biggest chunk of the $54 million is going to Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge in northern Louisiana. The refuge will receive $35.2 million to buy 17,023 acres of bottomland hardwood forest along the Ouachita River…