The founding logic was straightforward: most North American waterfowl breed in Canada, and the breeding habitat — the wetland-rich Prairie Pothole Region stretching across the northern Great Plains and into the Canadian provinces — was being lost faster than anyone was acting to protect it. DU set out to raise money in the United States, then put it to work restoring and protecting breeding habitat north of the border.

That cross-border model still holds today, and it matters every time you watch birds funnel down a Pacific or Central Flyway. The birds don't care about the border. Neither does the habitat math.

In FY2024, for the first time in the organization's 87-year history, DU delivered more than 1 million acres of conservation in a single fiscal year — roughly the land area of Rhode Island. In FY2025, that number climbed to 1.2 million acres, marking back-to-back years above the million-acre threshold.

That's not just a press release number — that's real ground that produces real birds. If you've noticed better seasons in recent years on certain flyways, some of that traces back directly to what those chapter banquets are funding.

The Gun of the Year program, launched in 1973 with a limited-edition Remington Model 1100, is DU's most recognizable firearms-related initiative... The program has raised more than $250 million for wetlands conservation over its 50-year run.

I've handled a few of these at local chapter dinners and at the gun counter at Snake River Shooting Products. Some are safe queens — engraved, unfired, collecting dust. Others have been run hard through decades of duck seasons, which honestly seems like the better fate for a working shotgun. Either way, $250 million in conservation funding from people bidding on shotguns at banquet tables is a number worth sitting with.

How long have you been involved with your local DU chapter, and have you ever taken home a Gun of the Year — and if so, is it still in the safe or has it seen some water?

Read the full article in The Handbook → | By The Boise Gun Club Team