Twenty Endangered Species stamps May 19 in Wall, S.D.

By Jay Bigalke

The United States Postal Service brings attention to 20 endangered species on a pane of stamps to be issued May 19. The stamps feature photographs of endangered species in the United States and its territories, plus two North American species living near U.S. borders.

The nondenominated (63¢) stamps will be issued at an 11 a.m. (Mountain Time) first-day ceremony at the National Grasslands Visitor Center, 708 Main St., Wall, S.D.

The grasslands are home to the black-footed ferret, which is pictured on one of the 20 stamps.

The event is free and open to the public.

Advance ceremony registration is available on the Postal Service’s website.

National Geographic Explorer and photographer Joel Sartore, who took the photos featured on the stamps, is scheduled to participate in the ceremony.

Also speaking will be Peter Pastre, USPS vice president, government relations and public policy; and Martha Williams, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director.

The 20 animals depicted on the stamp pane from left to right, top to bottom, are the Laysan teal, black-footed ferret, Roanoke logperch, thick-billed parrot; candy darter, Florida panther, masked bobwhite quail, Key Largo cotton mouse, Lower Keys marsh rabbit, Wyoming toad, Vancouver Island marmot, golden-cheeked warbler, Guam Micronesian kingfisher, San Francisco garter snake, Mexican gray wolf, Attwater’s prairie chicken, Nashville crayfish, piping plover, desert bighorn sheep and Mississippi sandhill crane.

The selvage on the 20-stamp pane shows a larger image of the Roanoke logperch photograph that appears on the fourth stamp in the pane. The issue title, “Endangered Species,” is lettered near the top of the pane, positioned to the right of the fish.

The name of the animal pictured on the stamp is inscribed at the upper or lower right, with “FOREVER” and USA” and “Endangered” on the left side of the stamp.

Banknote Corporation of America printed the stamps by offset with flexography in a print run of 30 million.

The photos shown on the stamps are part of Sartore’s Photo Ark. According to Sartore, there are “25,000 animal species in human care around the world,” and his goal is to document them all to “show the world what biodiversity actually looks like and get everyone to care about saving species while there’s still time.”

As of early May 2023, the project had documented 13,907 species with a searchable online archive of 45,665 photographs to view.

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