Native grasses and trees
Wetland
White-tailed Deer
Canada Goose, 1999
Cardinal 
Little Bluestem Seedheads
Duck HabitatDing Darling
Young Love
As a small boy Jay Norwood “Ding”
Darling once shot a wood-duck in nesting season. He was punished by his Uncle
John. Uncle John wanted Jay to learn that shooting ducks during the nesting
season meant fewer ducks the next year. Hunting ducks in the proper season
and shooting only as many as were needed for food was a better practice. This
was Ding’s first lesson in conservation. And conserving ducks became
a hallmark achievement of his life’s work.
Jay was born in Norwood, Michigan in 1876, but spent most of his early years
in Sioux City, Iowa. Roaming the prairie, Jay grew to love nature and appreciate
wildlife. As Jay later said, “Those were the days when the golden plover
came in great flocks and moved across South Dakota. From early spring until
the prairie chicken sought cover in the fall along the thickets bordering
the creeks and marshes, my mind has been filled with pictures which have never
been erased.”
Later, Jay studied pre-medicine at Beloit College in Wisconsin. When he was
responsible for editing the school yearbook, he decided to make it more interesting
by adding humorous sketches of campus events and professors. To keep his identity
secret, he used a contraction of his last name D’ing. The name stuck.
So did his newfound career as a cartoonist.
The Beginning of a Career
In 1906 Ding was offered a position
with the Des Moines Register and Leader newspaper. Ding believed
proper steps were not being taken to protect land and wildlife. He used his
job as a cartoonist to draw attention to the strong need for conservation.
His cartoons drew national attention, and he became famous.
Darling did not stop with drawing cartoons. He persuaded Iowa State College
(now Iowa State University) and the Iowa Fish and Game Commission to join
in a research program for the conservation of wildlife. He even pledged some
of his own money for the program. This team developed a 25-year conservation
plan, one of the first long-range plans in the nation. Ding later became chief
of the Biological Survey. Then he helped spread the idea of planning for the
future nation wide.
Recognition from a President
After seeing Ding's work in conservation,
President Roosevelt asked him to head the Biological Survey. Ding began the
work in his usual energetic way. To make sure ducks would always be plentiful,
Ding encouraged strict enforcment of duck hunting laws. Ding also knew more money was needed
to develop programs to help wildlife survive and grow in numbers. He managed
to get $17 million for "his ducks."
Another way Ding raised funds for conservation while he was chief was through
the Duck Stamp Act in 1934. The act, passed by Congress, required the sale of a federal
stamp to every hunter of migratory waterfowl. Ding drew the first stamp in
the series. The money from the sale of the stamps was to be used to manage
wildlife refuges and to enforce hunting rules. Duck stamps are still created
and sold every year.
A Lasting Contribution
Lake Darling State Park opened in Washington County Iowa, in 1950 and named in honor of Ding. It was the state's largest human-made lake at the time. There is another Lake Darling in Flordia.
Although Ding encouraged conservation
practices through his cartoons in the newspapers, he felt the public needed
to learn more about conservation so they could help too. Ding helped form
the National Wildlife Federation. This organization brought together many
little groups that were already educating people about conservation. Ding
served as president of the group for the first three years.
After Ding retired as the president of the federation, he was made its honorary
president. He wrote articles for the federation and sometimes even became
angry when he felt the federation was working for the wrong things. In 1961
he agreed with this friend, Walt Disney, to serve as a co-chair of federation’s
National Wildlife Week. Just one year later Ding died.
Ding combined his talents as a cartoonist with his love of wildlife to bring
attention to the need for planned conservation programs. He believed everyone
could be a conservationist in their own way. Ding loved nature, and he wanted
to preserve it so everyone would have a chance to enjoy it as much as he did.
His work lives on today.
Sources:
- "Important Iowa Conservationists" Iowa Natural Resource Heritage Series. Iowa Association of Naturalists.
- "Natural Resources." The Goldfinch Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1975). Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa.
