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Thursday, 06 May 2010 20:13 |
“They did a study that showed that if a kid isn’t involved in hunting by the age of 7, he never will get involved.”
Maybe you’ve heard that nugget somewhere. Maybe you’ve even said it. Or maybe you’re one of the many avid hunters who know that it isn’t true because you started hunting after age 7.
But it’s true that retention and recruitment of hunters is an important matter these days. After all, hunters are a primary source of conservation revenue, not to mention our contribution to the retail economy. More importantly, even though it can’t be quantified or measured, hunting has intrinsic values that sometimes seem forgotten in the current “industry” of big bulls and big bucks. (Pun intended)
Fish and game agencies across the country have been aware of declining participation in hunting for some time. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has conducted surveys since 1955. Their 2001 national survey estimated approximately 13 million hunters over the age of 17 and an additional 1.6 million hunters between the ages of 6 and 15 at the time. That sounds impressive until we realize that it was 6% of the population and a decline of over 1 million hunters from the previous survey in 1991. Their 2006 survey estimated only 12.5 million hunters. So the national trend appears to be a steady decline of 100,000 hunters each year. The Utah survey in 2006 indicated 178,000 resident hunters in the state – 24,000 of those being youth age 6 to 15, reflecting a similar although less dramatic decline despite a steady increase in the state’s population.
 We all know there’s plenty of debate. Why are hunter numbers declining? What can be done to change the trend? Is the current trend inevitable? Is the trend being accelerated by hunter and/or wildlife management decisions? Is the trend acceptable or even desirable provided that more revenue is extracted from the remaining hunters by way of increased permit fees and larger equipment expenditures? And just what are the intrinsic values of hunting?
Having come to at least some conclusion, some hunters are taking action. For one example, there are those who have confidence in the value of gateway programs such as NASP, the National Archery in the Schools Program. NASP is an international target archery program designed to involve kids in archery instruction and competition. While NASP is not a hunting program, it is largely funded by grants and donations from hunting and conservation organizations.
Another example is recruitment programs such as YHEC, the Youth Hunter Education Challenge, sponsored by the NRA. YHEC incorporates rifle, bow and muzzleloader shooting into a competition that includes wildlife identification, orienteering and other hunting skills.
Still another example is mentor programs such as the Professional Bowhunters Society Youth Program which selects young hunters to participate in hunts with peers and mentors for the purpose of imparting ethics and leadership skills.
These programs have provided wholesome and fun developmental activities for youngsters and have proven their worth in hunter recruitment. But it would be a mistake to overlook the fundamental value of less organized efforts on the part of thousands of dads, moms, relatives, friends and hunting buddies who make the effort to encourage and mentor new hunters of all ages. In 2007, the Fish and Wildlife service published Jerry Leonard’s addendum, to their 2001 survey. Leonard analyzed the survey data and one of his conclusions was that one third of new hunters are more than 20 years old.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation and the International Hunter Education Association assembled a think tank in 1999 that produced a handbook in 2000. They suggested 7 stages of hunter participation:
- Awareness: People who are aware that hunting and shooting are legal recreational activities. Facilitating factors include exposure to hunting and shooting through the media, seeing people out hunting and shooting and hearing others talking about hunting and shooting.
- Interest: People who move beyond the awareness stage and begin to develop some positive thoughts or feelings concerning a possible personal involvement. Facilitating factors include direct interaction with members of the hunting and shooting culture, development of an understanding of what hunting is all about, encouragement from family and friends and hunter education courses.
- Trial: People who begin to act on their interest in hunting and shooting. The person may begin to develop an identity as a hunter. Facilitating factors include apprenticeship experiences, social support opportunities and opportunities to develop technical and social competence in all sorts of hunting-related activities (scouting, shooting, finding game, understanding habitat quality, preparing meat, telling good stories, etc.).
- Apprentice: People who have had enough trial experiences to decide they like hunting and perceive themselves as hunters. Facilitating factors include development of multiple motivations for being a hunter, development of a sense of belonging to a broader hunting and shooting culture and development of interest in taking on initiator/companion/mentor role within the hunting and shooting culture.
- Continuation w/o Focused Support: People who have developed an identity as a hunter, along with the requisite social and technical skills needed to have satisfying experiences without outside assistance. Facilitating factors include being legally allowed to hunt alone, confidence in social support from family and friends and technical competence.
- Hunting Proponent: People who provide strong social and political support for the hunting and shooting sports at local, state/provincial, and/or regional and national levels. Facilitating factors include multiple motivations, tradition, heritage and individualism
- Temporary Cessation Stage: People who temporarily drop out of the hunting ranks because of various factors. Facilitating factors include physical, economic, or family obstacles, limited access to hunting land, loss of social support and loss of free time.
- Permanent Desertion Stage: People who permanently stop hunting and no longer consider themselves hunters. Facilitating factors include physical or economic inability, “Bad experience” with hunting or other hunters and limited access to hunting opportunity.
Bowhunters of Utah is honored to promote bowhunting through our members’ active support of hunter education, bowhunter education, YHEC, NASP, the Lee Kay Center, and our friends and affiliate clubs, businesses and proshops. Most importantly, we’re proud to serve the countless efforts of our members across the state to recruit new hunters and preserve the proud tradition of bowhunting.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 06 May 2010 20:45 |
Discuss (1 posts)
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Re:Hunter Retention & Recruitment - Paddling against the current
May 07 2010 21:48:33
Does anyone have the actual numbers of youth hunting for each year? I am especially curious about Utah's numbers. Mathmatically it is possible for the numbers to actually be increasing but the overall percentage of youths participating in hunting declining especially in a state that has had such a high population increase. Percentage vs. actual numbers can be two different things. I wonder how that looks and what story that tells.
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