Folly Farm Nature Preserve

Folly Farm is a 9-acre nature sanctuary and nature wildlife refuge located in beautiful Safety Harbor. This oasis offers free amenities: mile hiking trail, community and butterfly gardens, a Little Free Library, tree huggers and spinners. All are welcome - hikers, dog walkers, joggers, bird watchers, families with children. This piece of paradise was donated by George and Lucille Weiss and is open to the public dawn to dusk.

Duck Stamps

Eighty-five years ago, the first federal duck stamp was issued, beginning an era of conservation, collaboration, and - in at least one family – fraternal competition. Every migratory waterfowl hunter age 16 and older in the United States must purchase a $25, 1 ¾ x 1 ½-inch duck stamp to be properly licensed. The stamp also serves as a free admission pass to National Wildlife Refuges. Over 1 million stamps are sold every year, most of them slipped into waterproof bags and unceremoniously shoved into pockets and glove compartments. However, a rising number of stamps are purchased by non-hunters who stick them on cars and laptops; some even frame them.

Why do people buy these stamps if they don’t hunt? It’s for the birds, of course.

In 1934, during the Great Depression, conservationists and naturalists became concerned about the increasing destruction of wetlands vital to the survival of waterfowl. At the considerable encouragement of Jay “Ding” Darling, a cartoonist, artist, and conservationist, Congress passed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act, aka the “Duck Stamp Act.”

This act made the possession of a stamp mandatory for hunters of migratory waterfowl and created a fund for the proceeds of those stamps. Ninety-eight cents of every dollar raised from the sale of duck stamps is used to purchase and conserve waterfowl habitat. The program has raised over $800 million and protected over 6.5 million acres of wetlands since the passing of the Duck Stamp Act.