Montana Junior Duck Stamp accepting 2024 entries

The 2024 Montana Junior Duck Stamp Contest is accepting entries from student artists, art educators and mentors until March 22. 

Entries can be mailed or hand delivered to Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge at 4567 Wildfowl Lane, Stevensville, MT 59870. The contact number is 406-777-5552. 

The art image should be of a live, native North American waterfowl species that measures 9-inches by 12-inches in a horizontal layout. Artwork can be drawn using ink, paint, pastel, crayon or pencil. 

Entries should not be matted, drawn with a border, signed, initialed or lettered, computer-generated, photographs or copies or tracings of published art. Entries placing first through honorable mention will be publicly acknowledged and will receive ribbons and awards.

The Junior Duck Stamp Contest is an active participatory art and science program designed to teach wetland habitat and waterfowl conservation to students in kindergarten through high school enrolled in private, public or home schools.

The curriculum (www.fws.gov/juniorduck/) guides students using wildlife observation principles to draw or paint a waterfowl species in appropriate habitat. 

Approximately 27,000 students from across the country enter the contest annually. The Best of Show from Montana will compete in the National Junior Duck Stamp Contest in Washington, D.C.