 This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont. And today, my special guest is Steve Aegis, the Wildlife Refuge Manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, located in Brunswick, Vermont. Tell us about these duck stamps. I was a, well, I am a stamp collector and I always remember the back of my United States album. There were duck stamps and I didn't collect them because they were too expensive that they weren't used for mail. But tell us what a duck stamp is and a little bit about the history of them, if you could. Sure. So broadly speaking there, if you hunt waterfowl, you are required by law to have a federal waterfowl stamp. And what that allows is the hunting of waterfowl being a migratory species, migratory birds are protected and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So any hunter in any state is going to have a state hunting license, but they're also, if they're going to hunt waterfowl, need a federal stamp. And more than 90% of the cost of that stamp directly goes to the conservation of wetlands specifically for waterfowl through the National Wildlife Refuge System. So at this time, millions of acres across the country have been permanently protected for waterfowl directly through hunters supporting the use of that stamp. So there is a long legacy of hunters in this country supporting the conservation of wetlands for the protection of wildlife specifically waterfowl. So there is an art contest associated with the waterfowl stamp every year. And they're really there's two categories there's the adult stamp, which is what most people are familiar with, and the design for that stamp every year there's an art contest associated with that. And then there's also the junior waterfowl stamp as well and that's not associated with hunting it's it's more of an art and education contest. And that's directly and there's a coordinator in every state, and then within every state, it's free and open to the public so kids from pre K to 12th grade can enter into the art contest. And on average, there's about 27 to 29 pieces of artwork submitted nationwide every year into the youth waterfowl art contest in Vermont. It's really known for having a lot of waterfowl, certainly where I'm at in Essex County is not really an area that's well known for waterfowl but if you get over towards Lake Champlain certainly a lot more ducks in that area. And in Vermont we see about 100 pieces of artwork that gets submitted into the federal competition for the state of Vermont every year, and that fluctuates sometimes more sometimes less. And then within the junior duck stamp program, there are four age categories so you've got category one being pre K to third grade, category two being fourth grade to sixth grade, category three being seventh to ninth, and then category four being 10th, 11th and 12th. And then ultimately, the art contest produces a best of show, and then each state's best of show goes on to compete against one another, typically in Washington DC, every year, and then there is a national best of show, who is the, the artist the winner that wins the national competition so each year in March, the artwork is submitted to my office, and then we have an open public art contest that moves around to different locations in the state. Last year we held the art contest at the Fairbanks Museum. This year the art contest will be at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and that is going to be on my calendar in front of me I believe it's Thursday, March 28 from 930 to noon. It's an open public event if anyone's interested, and all the artwork that gets submitted for the federal junior duck stamp program for the state of Vermont will be included in that art contest at vins in March, and the best of show will then go on to compete against the best of show for each state within the nation. Great. How long is this competition been going on. The competition started for the, the youth waterfowl program the junior duck stamp program started in the 1980s, and in Vermont has been going on for more than a quarter of a century. So the entries, have any of these entrance gone on to achievement and art or maybe even working in the field of protecting waterfowl. If you know, I don't know the answer to that Dennis I've been overseeing administering the the junior duck stamp program in Vermont for US Fish and Wildlife Service for the past five years so I couldn't speak to the previous 20 plus years. Typically, the best of show artwork that is submitted and wins in Vermont is typically within the age category of that 10th, 11th, 12th. Those students are the ones that are committing a significant amount of time and energy into their artwork. The majority of winners for the junior duck stamp program in the state of Vermont have come from Linden Institute in London. They have a robust art program there and yeah a good number of the winners have all come from Linden Institute. That's amazing. How many participants do you anticipate this year. The numbers have decreased since COVID for one reason or another COVID change the dynamic and the number of entries that we receive. I anticipate maybe around 100 entries we always hope for more. It's exciting to have all the artwork submitted it's exciting to receive it at my office and open each one up and enter it into our database. So we always always hope for more and I'm always looking for ways to encourage more art teachers and more teachers and more homeschool families to become involved with the the art contest. It's a great way for kids and their families to think about the value of wildlife and the protection of the habitats that they require and then to express that in a form of artwork. That shows various waterfowl species and there is a list of eligible species that we can accept these are all game species. Now things that are not waterfowl looms. Great blue herons King fishers, those are not waterfowl we're we're looking for ducks, geese and swans would be under the category of eligible species for waterfowl. It's very interesting. What are the standards or the criteria for the submissions? What type of artwork, what type of medium or, you know, what type of paint, what are you requiring? Sure. So the artwork needs to be submitted in landscape format on paper or canvas or it could be on anything nine inches by 12 inches landscape format. Ideally, not with any text or numbers in the artwork you just want it as kind of the species and its habitat can be any medium we have colored pencil, sometimes just black pen chalk acrylic watercolor. We will accept any any form of medium submitted. It just has to be in a landscape format and sizing is nine inches by 12 inches. So is that the size of the submission or is it the side, let's say a student is just painting this on an easel. How did they have to translate that directly or can the nine by 12 format be replicated. I'm just trying to figure it out. It has to be the original artwork on a nine by 12 background. I see. Okay. And who does the judging the judging. There's five judges every year. And I typically try to have one to two New England wildlife artists or youth illustrators. Typically we try to have someone from either ducks unlimited or Vermont Fish and Wildlife, there might be a representative from US Fish and Wildlife Service we might have a representative from one of our legislative offices and so we've had people from US from Leahy or Sanders or Welsh's office. Always try to keep our Congressional is actively involved with what's going on in the state so we often will have a judge from the venue in which the the judging is taking place so this year we'll have a judge that works at vins. It varies every year, but it the requirement is five judges, and they try to have them from the state in which the judging is going to take place. Do they do that collectively or do they look at various pieces on their own. It's a very structured mechanism for the judging so they're all present in the same room at the same time. There's a lot of thought and respect that goes into the judging. There's no as required there's not much talking during the judging process you don't you don't want anything to be biased. The protocol for the judging is standardized across the country so every state judges the artwork the exact same way as any other state. And how long does that process take for 100 pieces of artwork it takes a little bit over two hours. And when you say 100 is that a limitation. No, we would happily accept I would happily accept 2000 pieces of artwork there are some states, Texas, California, the Dakotas, they often see over 1000 to 2000 pieces of artwork in any given year. If you're going to judge 2000 pieces of artwork that's a full day. Yeah, you're going to want to take a lunch break in the middle that day it's going to be a long day. Now how are you encouraging. I know you mentioned one school but how are you encouraging other schools or institutions to participate. That's always a challenge. Just outreach. I have a email mailing list of about 150 media outlets in the state also into New Hampshire as well. I contact Vermont's home school network, have a list of 50 plus schools academic institutions in the state, and also art camps, different art programs so I'm always open to ways to expand the program and reach out to more interested individuals. This year we put more of an effort into reaching out to organizations that are actively working in the, in the art scene throughout the state of Vermont. And what happens. What is the deadline again March, March 15 the National National deadline for all artwork to be submitted to the state coordinators is March 15. And what have maybe can carry us through the timeline after that because I'm sure some people going to really be anxious after their submissions. What what happens next, in terms of time. So I have started to receive artwork already and we'll continue to receive that till March 15, March 15 is the due date that they need to be submitted by. I then take the following week to enter all of the artists information on the back of each piece of artwork is standardized form that includes all their contact information so we have a database where all that gets entered into and then the artwork gets broken into those four categories that I mentioned this for age categories that I mentioned earlier. And then I put all of those, all that artwork into a storage box for the art contest and the art contest this year will be on March 28. We'll have a best of show determined at that date. And then we will also have first, second and third place winners within each of those categories. So after the art contest all the artwork comes back to my office and then we start returning the artwork to all of the students with any ribbons or awards any prizes that they may have received so there is a bit of prep work in advance of the art contest and then afterwards pulling together all of the the ribbons, all of the awards that students receive. And awards vary anywhere from bird books, natural field guides on waterfowl on birds to different types of art medium so we might mail out different palettes of watercolor paints or acrylics or colored pencils. And sometimes the schools will send them canvases for future use if they have a lot of winners from that school so it really it varies quite a bit year to year depending on what we receive for funding to pay for the awards. But the goal is the goal is to have the artwork back to the students in April. So that way they're aware of what they've won. They have their ribbons they can show those off at school. I know there are some schools that like to hang the students ribbons up and the certificates that they've received and recognition for their artwork. That's great. Well I'm sure some people are just hearing about this stuff. How does a teacher or an institution, make sure they participate. Do you have communications with them or what should someone do if they're a teacher or an administrator watching the show right there. So email me or they can call me and I don't know if you have the ability after this recording to post my contact information that people are interested. Email would probably be the best because I can send them a link for the website. I can send them the form that they can fill out their contact information. But I'm happy to communicate however works with anyone that's interested. Tell us that so so they can perhaps put it in the screen or add it to the description tell us the email and the other. Sure, my, my work email address is Steve s t e v e underscore a just a g i us at f w s as in fish wildlife service dot gov. What about an address physical address physical address that the artwork gets mailed to is 5396 Vermont route 105 Brunswick, Vermont 05905. That's great. And I just like to ask about the stamps generally how much revenue does that contribute, perhaps nationally but is there a state allocation for for this revenue that's generated by the stamps. Good question so the stamps. You're talking about the hunting stamps. Right. I don't know what the current costs is so. This was the stamp from 2020 2021. It's a looks like a blackbellied whistling duck. No, this one was $25 at the time so there's information on the back of it that explains what the what it goes towards. I don't know how much money has come in over the years. Through purchasing hunting stamps. I do know that it is been measured in the millions of acres of lands that have been protected for perpetuity for waterfowl in the country so. Again, more than 90% of the value of an individual stamp goes directly to land conservation in the United States. There's a high return on the investment of the duck stamp to think that in its history, millions of acres have been protected across the nation for waterfowl through the through the purchase of the hunting stamps. I know there's a collector's interest in this by itself. Do you have any information about that people who collect duck stamps and how they can participate in buying them or. Enhance that hobby and how does that benefit. Yeah, so you don't have to be a hunter to purchase the duck stamp. The purpose of the duck stamp, first and foremost is to protect habitat for waterfowl. So if you have an interest in conservation if you have an interest in protecting wetlands. I would strongly encourage anyone that it has an interest in protecting wetlands and protecting habitat for wildlife to purchase a waterfowl stamp. This is a direct benefit to from purchasing that stamp to permanently protecting habitat for wildlife. In relation to stamp collectors, certainly you could collect a stamp every year every single year. The artwork is different. Just like I mentioned with the junior duck stamp program there is a similar, but a higher level art contest for the national contest for adults. And you could you could say that the junior duck stamp program is just the runner up it's kind of the education program that brings people a better understanding of the adult duck stamp program. And there's there's also considerable amount of money that goes into those winners for the adult duck stamp. If you were to be the national winner. There is a prize award that goes with it. Now, is there one stamp or the other varying denominations. And there's one stamp each year. Yep. So, yeah, there's going to be the whoever whoever was the winner for the artwork, their artwork is going to be on the stamp for that year. And there's just one one type of stamp for each year, and it varies each year. Great. Well, how can people get more information or I want to ask, do you have, I know this is a tough question but do you have personnel who might be available to visit schools or or academies in connection with this contest. Unfortunately, it is just me overseeing the program in the state of Vermont. I have received request to visit various schools I'm based out of the Northeast kingdom. So if I receive a request within say a local driving distance an hour away from the office. I can typically accommodate those but unfortunately, for months, not a big state but a request to say visit Rutland Rutland or Bennington just isn't logistically feasible. So I'm happy to assist providing information online or mailing people information. But this is an additional duty as assigned it is not my job as a wildlife manager. It's just something that I'm passionate about and want to encourage more youth to be involved with the art program. But no, we don't we don't have a staff I don't have a staff directly involved with this it's just me. I understand completely. Now, what are the plans for the future I know we're dealing with this year's contest. What are any plans that you or the agency have, not only about this but in things in general that you're looking to draw attention to some any legislative initiatives or anything like that that the public can get involved. Um, so as it relates to the junior duck stamp program for in the state of Vermont, the federal program. I will try to have the judging take place at a different venue in a different location geographic location in the state each year. The best that I can. So, though I just said I don't travel throughout the state to give programs to various schools. I do intend to have the art contest occur in different geographic locations to expand the visibility of the program and the art contest. So, like I said, last year was the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury this year to be at Vins and Quichy. Next year I'm hoping to have it in a different geographic portion of the Vermont. That hasn't been clarified yet, but hopefully we can hit Western Vermont or Southern Vermont. Um, you know, that's one way to expand the outreach of it and then public engagement. Um, no, it's, I think really what would be helpful with this is if people are interested in waterfowl and youth artwork, they can certainly reach out to me and I can help point them in the right direction. Um, is, is, you know, what I would encourage people on this matter if they have ideas on how to reach out to more, more students or art programs or teachers. I'm happy to have those conversations. That's great because sometimes you see at libraries, for example, what artwork will submissions from other kinds of contests that visit that live. I just want to see if you'd be open to that. Um, I'm certainly open to the conversation for sure. That's great. That's great. But this is very interesting and I'd like to give the opportunity to give our viewers a final message or any kind of encouragement you want to give it this time. I appreciate that. Thank you Dennis. I would say that the reason that I continue to administer this program in the state of the Vermont and I previously had when I lived and worked in Maine. Um, it's a, it's a great and unique way for kids in this state to express their view and and what they think and appreciate of wildlife. In this case, it's waterfowl. So it's a great way for people to it's great way for kids for families to sit down and think about what wildlife and wetlands mean to them. And to put, you know, that thought in their head onto paper to express their, their interest and their appreciation for the living world, the natural resources that are around them around their home or in their community. So it's a great way to connect science and wildlife conservation through artwork. That's great. Well, thanks very much, Steve. This has been really interesting and I want to thank you for appearing on positively Vermont. My guest today has been Steve ages, the wildlife refuge manager for the US Fish and Wildlife Service located in Brunswick, Vermont and keep in touch. Thank you all for watching.