Area served North America | Founded 1911 | |
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Focus Waterfowl habitat conservation Location Bismarck, North Dakota, Winnipeg, Manitoba Key people James Ford Bell, Aldo Leopold, Hans Albert Hochbaum Type of business Habitat Conservation and Hunting Similar Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Fe, Theodore Roosevelt Conserva, California Waterfowl Association, The Wildlife Society Profiles | ||
Delta Waterfowl Foundation is a non-profit organization operating in both Canada and in the United States whose mission is to provide knowledge, leaders and science-based solutions that efficiently conserve waterfowl and secure the future for waterfowl hunting.
Contents
History
In the 1930s James Ford Bell, sportsman and founder of General Mills, purchased 5,000 acres (20 km²) of the Delta Marsh in Manitoba, Canada. For several years Bell hunted waterfowl on the marsh in the fall and raised and released waterfowl in the spring and summer from a privately owned hatchery.
In 1938, Bell approached Aldo Leopold, who is considered to be the father of wildlife management in the United States, about establishing a research station dedicated to waterfowl research at the Delta Marsh as very little was known at that time about waterfowl biology. After some discussion, Aldo Leopold agreed to Bell’s idea and brought in his graduate student Hans Albert Hochbaum from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Hochbaum completed his graduate work at the Delta Marsh on canvasback ducks and continued on to become the Scientific Director of the Delta Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Station.
Today
Today Delta Waterfowl Foundation supports graduate research on waterfowl (Master’s degree and Ph.D.) along with other programs focused on waterfowl populations and waterfowl hunting in North America.