 For several years Bell hunted waterfowl on the marsh in the fall and raised and released waterfowl in the spring and summer from a privately owned hatchery.In 1938, Bell approached Aldo Leopold, who is considered to be the father of wildlife management in the United States, about establishing a research station dedicated to waterfowl research at the Delta Marsh, as very little was known at that time about waterfowl biology.After some discussion, Aldo Leopold agreed to Bell's idea and brought in his graduate student, Hans Albert Hochbaum, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.