THE WILD DUCK CHASE is the basis for “The Million Dollar Duck,” a documentary feature film, directed by Brian Golden Davis and written by Martin J. Smith, premiering at The Slamdance Film Festival in January 2016. The book takes readers into the peculiar world of competitive duck painting as it played out during the 2010 Federal Duck Stamp Contest-the only juried art competition run by the U.S. government. Since 1934, the duck stamp, which is bought annually by hunters to certify their hunting license, has generated more than $750 million, and 98 cents of each collected dollar has been used to help purchase or lease 5.3 million acres of waterfowl habitat in the United States. As Martin J. Smith chronicles in his revealing narrative, within the microcosm of the duck stamp contest are intense ideological and cultural clashes between the mostly rural hunters who buy the stamps and the mostly suburban and urban birders and conservationists who decry the hunting of waterfowl. The competition also fuels dynamic tensions between competitors and judges, and among the invariably ambitious, sometimes obsessive and eccentric artists--including Minnesota's three fabled Hautman brothers, the "New York Yankees" of competitive duck painting. Martin Smith takes readers down an arcane and uniquely American rabbit hole into a wonderland of talent, ego, art, controversy, scandal, big money, and migratory waterfowl.

Hunters, collectors, conservationists and art lovers will all want this book on their shelves. Dolin's research skills and Dumaine's knowledge of the stamp market come together perfectly to detail the history and collector values of the Federal Duck Stamp. With Everything from production figures and collector values to little-known facts that have remained buried for decades, Dolin and Dumaine show readers that the Duck Stamp program is not only one of the best conservation programmes in the world, it is also the richest art contest. This book crosses the boundaries of collecting, conservation, art and history. It will become the standard by which other books are judged.