About U.S. Slumping Hunter Numbers
Maybe you have seen the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) report released in August. The 2016 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (National Overview) is the latest of these surveys. At the behest of state wildlife agencies, USFWS has been sponsoring the survey every five years since 1955. This is one of America’s most important wildlife-related recreation databases and probably the definitive source of information concerning participation and spending associated with hunting, fishing and other ways of recreating and enjoying wildlife across the country.
The survey is based on thousands of interviews of Americans who participate in fishing, hunting, wildlife watching (birders and other), and shooting/archery. In the last decade, fisher numbers have increased from 30 million to almost 36 million; in 2016 those anglers spent $46 million on gear, trips and so on. In 2016, there were 86 million wildlife watchers (45 million of whom were bird observers), up from 71 million in 2006. These watchers spent nearly $76 million related in one way or another to their activities. 2016 was the first year of surveying target shooters and archers, and the study found 32 million firearm target shooters and 12.4 million archers – about 15% of them were under the age of 16.
The number of hunters across the U.S. actually fell from 12.5 million in 2006, and 13.7 million in 2011, to 11.5 million in 2016. Related expenditures also dropped from $24.7 million in 2006 and $36.3 million in 2011 to $25.6 million in 2016. Therein lies the basis for calls to action from hunting and conservation organizations nationwide, as the numbers raise major concerns about funding for wildlife and habitat – and their future.
One of the organizations leading a call to action is the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (www.trcp.org). This outfit celebrates all kinds of outdoor recreation and pushes activities which support public lands and responsible natural resource policies. In the early September online issue of The Roosevelt Report, the first article was “A Confirmed Decline in Hunter Participation Should Be a Call to Action.” The first line was “It’s time for our community and decision makers to get serious about R3 [recruitment, retention and reactivation] efforts, adequate conservation funding, and smart policies that enhance hunters’ opportunities afield.”
Whit Fosburgh is president of the TRCP, and he’s been calling attention to the dire implications of community and wildlife leaders not seriously supporting the recruitment, retention, and reactivation of hunters, as well as other efforts to reverse the loss of revenue. R3 efforts for fishing and boating have been quite successful thanks to a funding provision in the Dingell-Johnson Act (aka, the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act) that allows a small percentage of excise tax revenues from fishing and boating equipment to be used for recruitment and retention programs. On the other hand, The Pittman-Robertson Act (P-R) created the excise tax on guns, ammunition, and archery equipment. The funds are apportioned to state wildlife agencies to be used for a variety of projects related directly to wildlife, conservation efforts and shooting programs, but P-R does not permit using the funds for R3 activities. The apparent loss of hunting-related revenue means fewer P-R funds for managing state wildlife and conservation programs; thus, the call to action.
Now, TRCP and other groups are beating the drum to modernize P-R so that the funds can promote hunting the same way Dingell-Johnson funds promote fishing and boating. These efforts also support modernizing hunter education and licensing systems, as well as expanding access and improving the quality of the hunting experience with better habitat and more wildlife.
A number of voices are calling for better federal funding for conservation and a new Farm Bill that enhances conservation efforts on private ground and supports landowners in enrolling more ground in public access programs. An increasing number of citizens and organizations are speaking to the critical need for sportsmen and women to continue being engaged in the public process of planning for management on America’s multiple-use public lands, as well.
See the 2016 survey for yourself at wsfrprograms.fws.gov/; just click on the survey’s link. For more on what individual hunters across the country are seeing in their own states, go to www.trcp.org, click on Blog and search for “usfws survey.”
So all this is about national patterns. Where does Washington State sit in these concerns about loss of hunters and hunting-related revenue?
Stand by… Next week, we’ll check on what’s happening in our own backyard.
