Ding darling: The conservationist

J.N. "Ding" Darling was a nationally-renowned conservationist as well as a cartoonist. He wielded his pen in defense of nature's water, land and air in an effort to explain the interdependence of all living things. Darling's commitment to conservation went past the newspaper page and into conservation politics.

Iowa efforts
In his home state, Darling was appointed to the first Iowa Fish and Game Commission in 1931. As one of the original members, Darling prodded the commission to conduct an ambitious biological survey of the state. The result was a 25-year state conservation plan that became a model for the nation.

A year into the commission, Darling conceived the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit Program and launched the first unit for three years at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) with his own funds. He intended that the program would educate young men and women in various academic disciplines about wise conservation management. The program was created because Darling had noticed there weren't enough scientifically trained people to do professional wildlife research. He intended, also, that the program would be truly a cooperative partnership among the state natural resources agency, the academic institution and eventually, the U.S. Department of Interior and the non-governmental Wildlife Management Institute. Darling extended the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit concept to other states; there are now 40 such units in 38 states.

Darling believed fervently in the incorporation of conservation principles as part of a liberal education. "Turn the natural resources of any area over to an ecologically ignorant populace and ecologically ignorant leaders, and they will rape the land and waters with as little regard for future consequences as the profit-motive boys display," he said.

Federal efforts
In addition to his Iowa work, Darling was a conservation leader at the federal level. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed the staunch Republican Darling to the so-called "Beck Committee" to recommend a land and wildlife reclamation program that would help turn the precipitous decline in migratory waterfowl. The committee was chaired by Tom Beck, editor of Collier's magazine, and also Iowa-born scientist and nature writer Aldo Leopold. Darling was appointed because of his conservation knowledge and his work as a member of the Iowa Fish and Game Commission. The committee's report included Darling's devastating critique of the leadership of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, the forerunner to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Despite the fact that Darling's political cartoons were consistently critical of FDR, the president appointed him as Chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey later that year. As Chief, Darling turned the agency on its head. He gave greater freedom to the capable scientists on board and attracted to the Bureau a platoon of young, energetic scientists and managers, some of whom devoted the remainder of their working lives to protection of the nation's natural treasures. Meanwhile he reserved three million acres of public land for wildlife refuges.

Darling was the architect of the greatly expanded system of National Wildlife Refuges. Some consider Darling's expansion of the wildlife refuges, combined with the generation of public support for the protection of threatened habitat, his greatest legacy.

Darling stepped on many toes, including those of FDR, in his brief but effective tenure as Chief of the Biological Survey. In 1935, after approximately 18 months at the helm, he submitted his resignation. His departure was mourned on editorial pages from New York to Los Angeles.

The First Duck Stamp
During his time in Washington, Darling lobbied incessantly for the passage of the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act, and he designed the first duck stamp in the popular "Duck Stamp" series. Since their introduction in 1934, sales of Duck Stamps have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the purchase of approximately five million acres of waterfowl habitat. (By Darling's design, approximately 98 percent of all proceeds from Duck Stamp sales are invested in habitat.) A postal commemorative stamp issued in 1984, bearing the original Duck Stamp design, sold nearly 124 million copies. Combined with the 635,000 original Duck Stamps, the design is one of the most reproduced and widely-recognized examples of wildlife art in the world. As the first duck stamp and a well-known example of Darling's work, the stamp has become a collector's item for outdoors enthusiasts.

Private efforts
Darling returned to Des Moines after his term and began, almost immediately, to organize a national consortium of conservation organizations to fight what he had seen were the well-organized Washington, D.C., pressure groups with no interest in conservation. In his colorful fashion, he noted, "eleven million horses running wild couldn't pull a rubber-tired baby buggy to town unless there was a harness to hook them to the load."

The result was the National Wildlife Federation--the largest organization of its kind. Darling was elected its first president in 1936. In 1939, after being re-elected twice, he tendered his resignation because of the health of his son, John, who had been seriously injured in an auto accident.

In his later years, Darling spent a lot of time in Florida with his wife and had a special kinship for Sanibel Island. Darling and others struggled to prevent a causeway from being built between the mainland and the island, but it was constructed anyway. Darling made a long-time personal commitment to protecting the island sanctuary from developers of hotels, condominiums and strip malls. The "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge, on Sanibel Island, was officially renamed in 1978 to honor his devotion to the island. The refuge's 6,354 acres, of which over 2,000 acres are designated wildlife area, provides a home for over 200 species of birds, some of which are threatened or endangered.

Ding continued to dedicate himself to conservation into his later years. "I'm learning one thing the hard way, and that is that you have to re-educate the public mind every fifteen or twenty years or it forgets everything learned a while back," Darling explained his dedication.

Darling was inducted in the Conservation Hall of Fame in 1965, three years after his death.