Like the Audubon Association, whose postcards we celebrated in earlier stories, the National Wildlife Federation sought to encourage awareness and respect for wild creatures and to build support for conservation of species.
The National Wildlife Publishing Company printed postcards that highlighted the nesting habits, migration patterns, preferred food, and the appearance of wild birds.
Under the organization’s principles of “Restore, Protect, Conserve”, the postcards provided a means of identifying the bird, and a concise description of the bird’s place in the ecosystem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Wildlife_Federation
This postcard features the “American Pintail” – a duck that was newly-protected from Spring hunting and was, consequently, becoming less rare.
(Interestingly, the American Pintail was sometimes found in Pennsylvania.)
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Birds/Northern-Pintail
Published in 1939, the postcard was designed for mailing.
The Wildlife Association does not identify the artist.
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The Audubon Bird postcards that we have seen earlier did not provide for mailing – and depended upon avid collectors to popularize the images.
(Which was effective – hundreds of thousands were collected by bird-lovers.)
The reverse of this postcard resembles that of a mailed postcard – which provides another means of sharing the Association’s message.
Nevertheless, this postcard did not go through the mail – which has helped to preserve the excellent quality of the print.
One hopes that the wildlife supporter who collected the postcard was able to see the American Pintail in the duck’s natural habitat.
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