James Ford Bell

Former President's Committee on Wildlife Restoration Chair Thomas H. Beck was AWI's first president and USPS Chief Ding Darling a founding member.

One of its vice presidents was General Mills founder James Ford Bell of Delta Marsh in Manitoba.

More than a few eyebrows were raised by the appointment of Darling, a Republican newspaper cartoonist, as a Washington bureaucrat in a Democratic administration.

Although supporters appreciated his keen, alert thinking and ability to make an instant appraisal of a problem, insiders feared that a heck of a good fellow was being let in among the wolves to be turned over a sadder but wiser person.

DU provided that opportunity and put its first water on the ground in May 1938 in Manitoba.

That summer, the USBS reported the combined U.S. and Canadian breeding population reached about 51 million birds, and the fall flight was predicted to be the best in 10 years.

1938 also marked the partnership between Delta Marsh's James Ford Bell and AWI.

Bell built a hatchery at Delta Marsh with the vision to create a leading waterfowl research program.

Delta Waterfowl began as a research station set aside by wealthy individuals.

You know what I'm saying? I think, I can't remember, was it the Kelloggs or one of them types that went in? James Ford Bell, you know, that set aside an endowment and began, you know, to research a lot of these birds and do stuff.

And, you know, where would we be? Where would the waterfowl world be right now in America without either one of them, let alone both of them? And those were former generations that put their time and their money where their heart was.

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