Wildlife conservation crisis looms as hunter population shrinks
By Bob Frye
TRIBUNE-REVIEW OUTDOORS EDITOR
Sunday, November 9, 2008


Farmland habitat, healthy forests and certain species of wildlife aren't all that are disappearing from the landscape. Hunters are becoming rare, too.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there were 18 million hunters ages 16 and older in America in the early 1980s. There are about 12.5 million now, the fewest since 1970.

That could lead to a conservation crisis of national proportions. The "North American Model" of wildlife conservation says wildlife belongs to the public. But it relies on a small minority of that public -- namely, sportsmen -- to fund its care.


In Pennsylvania, for example, the Game Commission gets almost all of its money by selling hunting and fishing licenses. It gets no tax money from the state's general fund. The situation is much the same in every state.

So who would pay for conservation if America winds up with half as many hunters as three decades ago?

One answer might be the "superhunter." Delta Waterfowl, an international group of duck and goose hunters, believes the hunters of tomorrow will have to pay more for licenses, while turning into more active advocates for their sport.

"If we're going to maintain the things we need in hunting, which is conservation funding and a voice in the public, that's where the superhunter comes in," said Dan Nelson, editor of Delta Waterfowl's magazine. "We're going to have to get more out of them than we've gotten from the hunters of the past."

Recruiting enough hunters to replace those who leave would stave off money problems. Wildlife agencies across the country have created youth-only seasons, developed mentoring programs, and teamed with sportsmen's organizations to run classes aimed at introducing children and women to the outdoors.

No one knows yet whether any of those programs are balancing out hunting's losses. But Mark Damian Duda, president of Responsive Management, a Virginia-based outdoor recreation survey firm that will study the issue over the next two years, has doubts.

"The problem with these programs now, and there are a lot of good ones, is that percentage-wise, it's a tiny amount of people they're reaching. They're probably a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done," he said.

Recruitment programs are up against some large-scale, hard-to-tackle issues, too. A study of hunter recruitment and retention done for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by economist Jerry Leonard found that urbanization -- which keeps people from connecting to nature -- is a serious impediment. Lack of access to huntable land and lack of time are others.

Economics factor in, too. Retention rates among hunters earning more than $40,000 remained stable between 1990 and 2005, but dropped by as much as 7 percent among those earning less.

Sportsmen typically turn to agencies such as the Game Commission to solve those problems, said Jody Enck, who studies hunters as a research associate in the human dimensions unit of Cornell University's Department of Natural Resources. But that's not realistic, he said.

Hunters need to help themselves by getting involved in protecting open space and recruiting newcomers, he said. They need to build alliances with nonhunters who, of necessity, might be asked to help pay for wildlife conservation.

"I think the North American model is going to have to evolve," Enck said. "But the way they want to do it makes it doomed. That will change it completely, and it won't be to their liking."

Nelson agreed. "It's not enough any more to just wait for the ducks to show up and complain if you don't have anywhere to hunt. Hunters have to get involved. They have to get involved up to their ears."


Bob Frye can be reached at bfrye@tribweb.com or 724-838-5148.
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Pretty scary, we see it even here in Wyoming, with fewer and fewer teenage hunters. A few years ago all of the schools had a "hunting day" that was on or near opening day of deer season, so kids as well as teachers could go hunt. It went away!

Well Its Land Owner Rifle Season for Deer here in Connecticut, I been out in the woods ever day since the opener on the First. I have not heard a single shot so far this season. I have not seen anybody on the ajoining properties. I have noticed its been getting very quite during hunting season the last few years, I think it will pick up when the rest can hunt, in another week or so. I was talking to a Neigbor of mine a year or so back, he said none of his grand kids want to deer hunt at all. I told him at that time, that there will be almost nobody hunting in another generation and a half. Its going to be a lot different thirty years from now just as its different today than it was thirty years in the past. The one good thing we have today is good game numbers in most places. Its still take effort to hunt, and the problem I see, most don't want to put the effort into it.

Hunter population is a huge concern to the future of hunting, especially when politics comes into play or the never-ending lead warnings. I like the idea that Montana has is when kids get their hunter safety and are legal to hunt FWP will give them their tags their first year. There are even kid only hunting seasons in some fantastic areas.

The only thing I can see that is the cause is that a lot, A S*@T LOAD, of land is now tied up in fee hunting, leases, and outfitting. Even worse is the people that tie up land that may be the only access to public blocks ultimately removing public lands from the equation.

Many people who grew up in the days of just asking are now finding it hard to gain access on land they have hunted for years. Thus condensing hunters onto public land and, in Montana, Block Management. Heavily hunted lands keep people from exposing children to the sport.

There is also a growing population of people that only want to shoot antlers as we are no longer dependent on the meat for subsistence.

I do not have enough fingers or toes to even think of the number of young people that have told me they stopped hunting because they had no land that they could hunt on and were tired of begging to use a spot. If there is any public land to use in our area it looks like 50!!! people per acre.Thats the simple fact.The last time i took my now 84 yr old father deer hunting i watched from a distance as a guy ran up to my dad pushed him off an open field that was not posted and my dad and i hunted since i was 12 yrs old. most of us can not afford to pay to hunt on game areas. its becoming a rich mans sport. most of us find it hard to take our kids to a baseball game without splitting the hot dogs.I know we have alot of good landowners ,but also some that smell. Until the day i die i will never forget the look on that old mans face,the one that was always there when i needed him,the one i looked in the face and could not answer,MY FATHER.So the hunting numbers keep going down. I guess the ones with all the land will just have to the price,I WILL NOT!!!!!

An issue that occurs (at least here in Colorado) is that, even though game management is funded by hunters and fishermen, more and more restrictive and anti-hunting rules get passed at the instigation of the non-paying/non-hunting "general" public. When the agency in charge is not responsive to it's constituency it hurts the entire process.

I used to be deeply involved in this issue locally. Finally threw my hands up over the utter apathy of the typical American hunter! THAT is what will ultimately do us in. Or at least what we've come to know.
"Hunters need to help themselves by getting involved..." Yeah right. Good luck!
"I think the North American model is going to have to evolve," Enck said. "But the way they want to do it makes it doomed. That will change it completely, and it won't be to their liking." Now there's a quote I can agree with!

We've seen government's answer to population reduction in urban or other un-huntable areas, bring in the sharpshooters for a couple nights and the problem is solved.

Hunting in some form will certianly continue but I foresee somthing akin to the European or South African approach where it's pay as you go with the game belonging to the landowner. We already see a tremendous amount of this in the fairly recent idea of "hunting leases." Unfortunately for the average guy, paying several thousand dollars a year in addition to all the normal hunting expenses is going to put it out of reach.

Perhaps worst of all though is the time and access factors mentioned in the article. Who among you carries a cell phone hunting? Who can still walk out their backdoor to the woods? We're too hurried and a day of hunting takes pre-planning to pull off. Too often that means just sitting at home in front of the TV instead!

As an outside observer it has and does appear that the CO DOW does everything possible to make hunting and now even fishing more difficult. Especially for new hunters. It doesn't get anymore short sighted than that.

One quick look at the most current rules and regs is enough to take a possible 'want to be' and make them a 'definitely not' in no time.

They have over protected geese to the point of friggin rediculous. They make sure that new young hunters quickly get discouraged with the big game preference point system. They insist on adding more silly fees to every license. They do nothing to generate new hunters. They cave in to every special interest idoit group that comes down the pike....facts or no facts.

Is it truly any wonder ?

I honestly feel it comes down to the lack of land access. For a kid to get interested he has to see game and be able to take a shot. Where I live, it's the typical situation where private land is all locked up in leases and public land is over-crowded.

Frankly I get tired of hearing state wildlife officials cry about the declining hunter population while they do nothing about improving access. And it's shouldn't be that hard. Some states have excellent programs that guarantee public access to private land... ND and SD both are very good at this. It can be done, but it needs to come from the State agencies.

Instead, here in NC they raise license fees to compensate for the lost revenue due to fewer licensees and wonder why "nobody wants to hunt anymore". They even did a large focus group study a few years which concluded the biggest concern facing hunters in this state was lack of land access. What did the Dept of Wildlife Management do? Raised the price of an annual Sportsman's license from $40 to $50... thanks.

Whew... I feel better now.

Actually, I don't as I'm faced with another opening day this Saturday and the prospects of heading into the public game lands with 100 of my closest buddies.. again.

Well, let's take a look at what a new hunter faces:
1. Has to sit for a day in hunter's ed class
2. submit to a background check to buy a firearm
3. purchase an assortment of clothing specific to their area (orange in some cases) and ammo and gear (binos, range finder, skinning knives, etc)
4. obtain a lease. around here you're looking at starting out at around $1k
5 If the lease doesn't have a house where are you going to stay? Trailer purchase?

This doesn't include everything but mostly the high dollar stuff. Sure, some guys grow up w/ these things, but some like myself had to do just this. First trailer the rats were scared of. The second - I was scared of...

The initial investment can be eye opening. For kids a Game Boy is just as entertaining and they can play them from a nice heated home.

Sad but true.

I'm sure my guns will end-up in a garage sale, and my mounts in the dump. Hunters in my generation and the two following in my extended family are 1 for 19 excluding myself; and the one hunter doesn't have a job or a pot to piss in.

I too remember the days when going deer hunting was an excused absence from school, and you could drive down the main street with a buck in the back and not draw much notice, unless he was a big one. You could also hang a buck off your basketball goal until you could get him processed. Not much of that going on in suburbia these days.

I sometimes wonder. We used to play outdoor games and take out our predatory insticts on wild game; beginning with birds and BB guns. Now they play video games where they kill "people" and then carry-out their predatory insticts by killing people at high schools and colleges. Seems like there is a connection there.