The Izaak Walton League of America, Inc. is an American environmental organization founded in 1922 that promotes natural resource protection and outdoor recreation. The organization was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by a group of sportsmen who wished to protect fishing opportunities for future generations. They named the league after seminal fishing enthusiast Izaak Walton (1593–1683), known as the "Father of Flyfishing" and author of The Compleat Angler. Advertising executive Will Dilg became its first president and promoter. The first conservation organization with a mass membership, the League had over 100,000 supporters by 1924. An early result of their efforts was the establishment of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge in 1924.[1]
The League led unsuccessful efforts in the 1930s for clean water legislation but achieved initial success with the passage of federal water pollution acts in 1948 and 1956. Its major victory came with passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The League continues to advocate for preserving wetlands, protecting wilderness, and promoting soil and water conservation.
Although the League's membership declined by the 1960s to a stable level around 50,000, the organization retains a firm base of conservationists and anglers nationwide, with more than 200 chapters across the country. The League publishes a quarterly magazine, Outdoor America, which covers the League's activities as well as the environment. They are headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.[2]
In the 1920s, the League helped save the now-thriving Jackson Hole elk herd by purchasing several thousand acres in Wyoming to provide food and range for the herd. To protect against overfishing of bass, the League worked to enact the Black Bass Act of 1926, expanding the Lacey Act to prohibit illegal shipment of fish.
In the 1930s, the League worked with the noted conservationist Frederick Russell Burnham and the Arizona Boy Scouts to save the bighorn sheep. These efforts led to the establishment in 1939 of two bighorn game ranges in Arizona: Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.[3] To prevent damming and flooding portions of the Superior National Forest, known now as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, the League helped draft and pass a federal law in 1930 to prevent the damming.
In the 1940s, the Izaak Walton League of America raised concerns about the pesticide DDT, and played an integral part in protecting the Jackson Hole National Monument from the cattle industry in Teton County. They also helped to support the transition of the monument into Grand Teton National Park.[4]
Its Save Our Streams (SOS) program involves activists in all fifty states in monitoring water quality. In 2018, the League introduced Salt Watch, a volunteer water monitoring program designed to detect high levels of chloride in waterways. That program also works with private citizens, local governments and landscape companies to reduce the use of salt as a de-icer on roads, parking lots and sidewalks. In 2023, the League introduced Nitrate Watch, a national program to test waterways and drinking water for high levels of nitrate, which is linked to cancer and certain birth defects.
In May 1973, the League sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the clearcut logging of Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia as being contrary to the law, which stated in part, "only dead, physically mature, and large growth trees individually marked for cutting" could be sold. The US District Court ruled in favor of the League. The ruling was appealed; on August 21, 1975, the Fourth Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision. The ramifications of this local decision for forestry and the timber industry nationally led to efforts to repeal the Organic Act. This resulted in a new law passed by Congress: the National Forest Management Act of 1976, which repealed major portions of the Organic Act.[5]
The Columbus Izaak Walton League Lodge, in Columbus, Nebraska, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.