Decline In Hunters Threatens How U.S. Pays For Conservation (NPR)

[uster19]

Not normally a big fan on NPR but this was a good article. This is the first "main stream" new piece I have seen addressing this issue that is widely talked about by hunters.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation

Hope the link worked.

 

[Mallardsx2]

I know that its a numbers game and they normally dont lie.

People just cant afford to hunt anymore. The cost of licenses is preventing a lot of people from participating and its only getting worse.

Having said that, Come to any trail-head during coloado's opener of the OTC 2nd rifle elk season and ask yourself if hunters are declining....lol

 

[IDFireLass]

Same in Idaho. It's crowded and opener for deer is usually a foot race.

 

[Sytes]

Interesting review.

This caught my attention.

In 1992, Tom Heberlein, a rural sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, made a bold prediction: If sociological trends, like increasing urbanization, smaller family sizes and growing anti-hunting sentiment continued, the sport of hunting – as Wisconsinites knew it – could be extinct by the year 2050.

A quarter century later, Keith Warnke, the hunting and shooting sports coordinator for the state of Wisconsin, sits at his desk in downtown Madison looking at a graph of recent hunter data.

"It's just striking how close demographers were in their estimates to the actual hunter numbers," he says.

In some sense it ties into the other thread on non resident price bump and, as stated in the article, may also lead to pricing out non residents...

Many states have increased license fees for out-of-state hunters to compensate for the decrease in license sales, but Lobner says there's only so far you can raise fees before you start pricing people out.

Downside for the likes of MT; if collected via State legislated tax to compensate for matching federal assist if it reaches that point, I believe that opens another can whereas legislators become lobbyist targets to enact "regulations" over that of educated biologists, employees of FWP, etc. Not sharing this as fact though that is my understanding...

 

[elkduds]

Well worth reading. Seems like the farther we get from rural living, the less hunting, conservation and the health of the land matter. Decades ago groups like Nature Conservancy and RMEF were started by visionaries who could see the risks we are living now, while most said, "why worry, public land is an infinite commodity."

 

[beginnerhunter]

Purely anecdotal, but another factor may be the death of the "casual hunter". You know, the one who buys a license to shoot a squirrel or sit in a deer stand a few days a year. My father and brother were casual hunters and now they don't buy licenses. My nephews don't hunt either (I know, I should take them).

Perhaps the recruitment of young women into hunting will offset some of this. But it may already be too late...

 

[Big Fin]

Everybody should read that article. Not that we don't already know it, but it distills it into some pretty stark realities.

 

[BuzzH]

Downside for the likes of MT; if collected via State legislated tax to compensate for matching federal assist if it reaches that point, I believe that opens another can whereas legislators become lobbyist targets to enact "regulations" over that of educated biologists, employees of FWP, etc. Not sharing this as fact though that is my understanding...

BFD, the legislature/lobbyists already do it, in every state...may as well make them pay for their meddling.

 

[tjones]

In some sense it ties into the other thread on non resident price bump and, as stated in the article, may also lead to pricing out non residents...

R or NR tags and licenses are the cheapest part of the hunt for the Sitka wearing, Kimber packing, F350 driving, MR using, Swarovski hauling, Kennetrk wearing modern hunter. Yet guys still gripe.

 

[BucksnDucks]

R or NR tags and licenses are the cheapest part of the hunt for the Sitka wearing, Kimber packing, F350 driving, MR using, Swarovski hauling, Kennetrk wearing modern hunter. Yet guys still gripe.

Oh so true. All the cool gear is appealing to some, but also very intimidating to new hunters. I run into many students interested in Hunter Ed classes (both kids and adults)that think piles of gear is a necessity to start hunting. I try to explain that myself and everyone I hunt with started with very little in the way of gear.
I agree that tags and license are small portion of cost for lots of hunters, but I do believe it is a barrier too high for some new hunters to overcome.

 

[noharleyyet]

R or NR tags and licenses are the cheapest part of the hunt for the Sitka wearing, Kimber packing, F350 driving, MR using, Swarovski hauling, Kennetrk wearing modern hunter. Yet guys still gripe.

Casting the big seine today.

 

[BuzzH]

R or NR tags and licenses are the cheapest part of the hunt for the Sitka wearing, Kimber packing, F350 driving, MR using, Swarovski hauling, Kennetrk wearing modern hunter. Yet guys still gripe.

Agreed...lets not forget that there aren't many deer, elk, pronghorn, moose, sheep, goat, bison tags going unsold in MT, WY, OR, WA, CA, AZ, UT, NM, etc. etc.

IMO, I think where things are really falling apart is in the Midwest and East. Hardly any public lands and those that exist, get pounded. Also, the baby-boomers have done a damn good job of looking out for themselves and feathering their own nest with a lot of wildlife policy. They just forgot about everyone else, including their own kids and the future of hunting/conservation...a common theme with that generation, hunting policy and otherwise.

 

[tjones]

Casting the big seine today.

Maybe not in Texas but hang out in Anywhere Montana opening weekend (add F350 with a Razor side by side) and you will see its not so big.

 

[BrentD]

Agreed...lets not forget that there aren't many deer, elk, pronghorn, moose, sheep, goat, bison tags going unsold in MT, WY, OR, WA, CA, AZ, UT, NM, etc. etc.

IMO, I think where things are really falling apart is in the Midwest and East. Hardly any public lands and those that exist, get pounded. Also, the baby-boomers have done a damn good job of looking out for themselves and feathering their own nest with a lot of wildlife policy. They just forgot about everyone else, including their own kids and the future of hunting/conservation...a common theme with that generation, hunting policy and otherwise.

While I can agree with that to some degree, I think it is more the private leasing and lack of access to private lands, not the lack of public land, that is the issue. Private and public lands are not simply two sides of the same coin. Access to private land used to be easy. Now it is often all but impossible and then there is leasing of private on top of that.

The other, widely missed reason, is that, frankly, unless you are of a pretty far right political stripe, you simply are not welcome. Believe it.

Hunters have ostracized 1/2-2/3s of the nation's population right at the get go. This affects not just declines in hunting, but also participation in shooting competitions which are also mostly declining.

 

[beginnerhunter]

R or NR tags and licenses are the cheapest part of the hunt for the Sitka wearing, Kimber packing, F350 driving, MR using, Swarovski hauling, Kennetrk wearing modern hunter. Yet guys still gripe.

The Walmart camo guys aren't complaining because they're just staying home and hunting whitetails in their state. The tag fees are an insurmountable starting point for many NR. Not even worth considering.

 

[tjones]

The Walmart camo guys aren't complaining because they're just staying home and hunting whitetails in their state. The tag fees are an insurmountable starting point for many NR. Not even worth considering.

Yet the western states have no problem selling out their tags.

 

[Sytes]

R or NR tags and licenses are the cheapest part of the hunt for the Sitka wearing, Kimber packing, F350 driving, MR using, Swarovski hauling, Kennetrk wearing modern hunter. Yet guys still gripe.

I would imagine my $180 or so priced resident tag for fishing, fowl, turkey, archery, bear, deer, elk, special tags, drawings, etc could use a fair bump to further support our FWP LEO's to enforce, biologists to study and the admin staffing.
It's a bit of a disappointment and fits with the quoted portion shared from the NPR article. We have out priced those non residents who are in the same boat as many resident hunters. Those who can not afford a $150 pair of Sitka gloves to begin the high price point ensemble... We've defined our non resident clientele as you point out.
It is what it is. We choose where we live as I've held within my signature line...

Live to work or work to live... Your choice

Was an interesting tie in with our recent thread on the very topic...

 

[Mallardsx2]

I still wear the jacket my dad gave me when I was 12 years old and I make good money.

IMHO, and this is only my opinion, Its a mismanagement of the $$ resources. We as sportsmen need to start following the money trail and hold people accountable for wasting money. These NR prices are out of hand and they keep going up and up. Pricing average guys right out of hunting.

Pennsylvania for instance, had all kinds of money coming in from the gas leases. They decided to invest in a pheasant farm and they built the farm in a floodplain....

I'm serious. This happened...

Govt officials are making stupid/reckless decisions blowing our money state by state. We are paying for their shortcomings.

Pennsylvania Pheasant disaster
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/09/thousands_of_pheasants_are_gon.html

Deer Leases - *Exception* Self Inflicted wound by sportsmen but guys are joining leases because the state land is poor hunting in the east in the majority of circumstances.
https://ahuntinglease.org/are-you-ready-hunting-lease

Pennsylvania game commission decimating deer herds.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/pa-commonwealth-court/1051341.html

Introducing wolves
https://defendersblog.org/2015/01/reintroducing-wolves-yellowstone-idaho-20th-anniversary/

This is all stuff that has only added to the decline of hunters across the United States and there are thousands more issues just like these that have hunters not only pissed off but disappointed at the end of a hard days hunt.

How are you suppose to recruit hunters nationwide when the game populations are lacking and the people who should be fixing the issues are recklessly spending it?

 

[Big Fin]

Agreed...lets not forget that there aren't many deer, elk, pronghorn, moose, sheep, goat, bison tags going unsold in MT, WY, OR, WA, CA, AZ, UT, NM, etc. etc.

IMO, I think where things are really falling apart is in the Midwest and East. Hardly any public lands and those that exist, get pounded. Also, the baby-boomers have done a damn good job of looking out for themselves and feathering their own nest with a lot of wildlife policy. They just forgot about everyone else, including their own kids and the future of hunting/conservation...a common theme with that generation, hunting policy and otherwise.

Every study as to the source of this decline points to loss of accessible lands. That comes in many forms - development, hunter behavior not what a landowner wants, leasing at the exclusion of other hunters for the large list of reasons that it makes more sense to a landowner, closing of arteries previously used to access public lands, etc.

It is this loss of access that drives the crowding some mention. When you have 10% fewer hunters but 30% loss, or whatever the % is, in accessible lands, the result is higher hunter densities on the remaining lands. Higher hunter densities result in less game, lower quality experience, and eventually restricted opportunity.

Thus, the effort toward improving and maintaining access is paramount. We can agree, disagree, fight, argue, whatever we want about the other supposed reasons, but if we are not all on board for maintaining and improving access to hunting lands, whether public or private lands, the end result is a foregone conclusion.

 

[tjones]

We have out priced those non residents who are in the same boat as many resident hunters who can not afford a $150 pair of Sitka gloves to begin the high price point ensemble... .

I saw a FB post last season from a local dude griping he spent $130 on tags and how crooked FWP was for charging so much. Right below the post was a pic of a new Razor side by side decked out with all the accessories he had just bought for "hunting".

Look to access and game numbers as possible reasons, tags fees, not so much.