Ross Hier receives ‘Ding’ Darling Memorial Award

Wildlife professional and artist Ross Hier has received the 2020 Jay N. “Ding” Darling Memorial Award for Wildlife Stewardship Through Art.

The award honors Darling’s legacy of using art to advance conservation through the Federal Duck Stamp Program, poignant political cartoons and other work. In 1950, Darling became the first recipient of the Aldo Leopold Memorial Award.

“Through his activities as a wildlife professional and artist, Mr. Ross Hier has exemplified the legacy and traditions created by Jay N. ‘Ding’ Darling,” the awards committee found.

Ross Hier’s watercolor “A Balcony Seat for the Forest Theater Matinee” appeared on the poster for the Minnesota Chapters of The Wildlife Society and Society of American Foresters annual meeting last year.
Credit: Ross Hier

Hier has contributed dozens of paintings to raise funds for the Minnesota and North Dakota chapters of The Wildlife Society and other nonprofits and community groups. In the last three years, his donations have raised thousands of dollars to support TWS chapter student professional development programs.   Sales of his donated artwork have helped provide required matching funds for public grants sought by the Prairie Chicken Society for conservation activities and he is a regular contributor of art, articles and cartoons published in the Prairie Chicken Newsletter.

“All of these factors make Mr. Ross Hier a truly deserving recipient of the 2020 Jay N. ‘Ding’ Darling Memorial Award for Wildlife Stewardship Through Art,” the committee found.

Click here for a complete list of 2020 TWS award winners. For more about this year’s virtual conference, click here.