About This Stamp
America’s natural bounty includes an astounding variety of unique and priceless wildlife. Under the Endangered Species Act, which marks its 50th anniversary in 2023, more than 1,300 imperiled plant and animal species are safeguarded to increase their chances of survival. With this pane of 20 stamps, the U.S. Postal Service® presents a photographic portfolio of 20 representative endangered animal species. Those featured are found within the 50 states and American territories and possessions, or living near U.S. borders.
The word “Endangered” and the common name of the pictured species is printed on each stamp. The pane’s selvage features a larger version of the Roanoke logperch photograph with the issuance title, “Endangered Species.”
On the first row are: Laysan teal, black-footed ferret, Roanoke logperch, thick-billed parrot; second row: candy darter, Florida panther, masked bobwhite quail, Key Largo cotton mouse; third row: Lower Keys marsh rabbit, Wyoming toad, Vancouver Island marmot, golden-cheeked warbler; fourth row: Guam Micronesian kingfisher, San Francisco garter snake, Mexican gray wolf, Attwater’s prairie chicken; fifth row: Nashville crayfish, piping plover, desert bighorn sheep, Mississippi sandhill crane.
The colorful and charismatic endangered creatures presented on the stamps are selected from among more than 13,000 in Joel Sartore’s “Photo Ark” project, the photographer’s enduring global mission to document as many animal species as possible. The striking studio-style portraits give vivid immediacy to the uniqueness of each individual pictured and to the species it represents.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the pane using Joel Sartore’s existing photographs.
The Endangered Species stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.
Existing Photographs By
Joel Sartore
Joel Sartore was raised in Ralston, Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, with a degree in journalism. During his decades-long photography career and his mission “to show a world worth saving,” he has documented endangered species and landscapes all over the planet.
Sartore is longtime contract photographer for National Geographic. His work has also been published in Audubon magazine, the New York Times, Life, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, and numerous books. Sartore is a regular contributor to Sunday Morning on CBS and has also appeared on other network news programs and National Geographic’s Explorer, NPR’s Weekend Edition and Fresh Air, and in a PBS documentary, At Close Range. His television series Rare: Creatures of the Photo Ark has aired on both PBS and NatGeo Wild. He even appeared as himself on a 2021 episode of General Hospital.
In 2006, Sartore founded The Photo Ark, an ongoing effort through which he has created portraits of more than 12,000 species. Sartore is also a dynamic public speaker, author, teacher, and conservationist. He is a Senior Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, a National Geographic Fellow, and has been recognized with awards such as the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year award and the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Rungius Medal.
His first U.S. Postal Service® project is Endangered Species (2023).
Sartore is always happy to return to home base from his travels around the world. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife Kathy.