By Peter Muller, Vice President of C.A.S.H.
It has become a fairly common place observation that hunting is decreasing. The questions that are still up for discussion are “Why?” “How fast?” and “Is the trend irreversible?”
It is acknowledged by the government agencies that hunting is in fact decreasing.
Some agencies of the federal and state governments have an interest in keeping hunting going. Even though by all accounts the number of people who hunt each year is steadily declining, these agencies try to reinterpret and introduce novel methods of counting, and even initiate new programs to retain and recruit new hunters. We would like to examine these efforts to see if any of them can reasonably be expected to stave off the inevitable demise of hunting in our time.
There are two types of efforts by these agencies we have to consider:
- Fudging the numbers (whistling in the dark) to not give up in light of the facts
- Recruiting and retaining more hunters.
One of the standard references for information on the number of hunters is a series of publications entitled “The National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation.” The surveys are conducted by the Census Bureau for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The series was started in 1955; a new volume has been issued about every five years since then. For the 1991 issue, the methodology of collecting data was changed so the data from prior issues cannot be used to find trends of change of rates of participation in hunting. In the 2011 publication the methodology of surveying was again changed to include more data from counties where there were larger sales of hunting licenses, and also to include unlicensed hunters, poachers, as hunters. So the numbers of the 2011 were again not useful for finding trends increases or decreases of participation in hunting.
To get a sequence of fairly accurate numbers reflecting hunting participation in recent years I used the number of annual license sales reported by the states to the federal government. The states report their hunting license sales to the federal government every year in order to establish their portion of the distribution of the Pittman-Robertson fund. I started with the license sales for all 50 states from 2001 through 2013. Of course not everybody who buys a license goes hunting in that year. In 2001 and 2006 there were also methodologically consistent publications of The National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation. In those years the number of hunters reported were about 85% percent of the license sales. Assuming that the 85% of license sales is a good approximation of the actual number of hunters for that year– I plotted the line curve of hunters from 2001 through 2013. The statistical trend line (in red) shows a clear downward slope.
The basic facts are told by the graph (from Responsive Management, Page 30):
- The number of hunters is decreasing.
- There is an uptick around 2011 that did not really decisively turn down again until 2013.
We would like to explore underlying socio-economic shifts in the country that will allow us to explain:
- the steady decline of the numbers of active hunters
- the uptick in the year 2011
- the resumption of the downturn after 2012
- Are the measures taken by state and federal government agencies to maintain a higher level of hunting participation successes or failures?
Changing demographic factors in the U.S. are driving the trend of decreasing hunting participation. One of the most important trends is the increasing urbanization of the U.S. Most of the population now lives in non-rural housing, with increasing urbanization expected to continue for some time. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1950, 36% of the U.S. population lived in a rural area. This percentage went down to 30% in 1960, to 25% by 1990, and down to 22% in 2000. This demographic trend is important because hunting participation is positively correlated with living in a rural area (RM 2004a, 2005a, 2006b).
To compound this factor, an analysis of National Survey data found that hunter recruitment was down sharply among urban residents, relative to residents of non-urban areas (Leonard 2007). Since that trend seems to be a major factor in recruiting new hunters, the recruitment number is declining steadily. Urban and suburban children are much less likely to be interested in hunting than children growing up in a predominantly rural environment.
The percent and number of hunters has been and is currently highly correlated among both existing and newly recruited hunters. Since the percent of rural residents is steadily declining — percentage of hunters including new recruits to hunters is steadily also a steadily declining —
The most significant summary measure is not the number of hunters but the hunters as a percentage of the population which is declining steadily with again a small up-tic in 2011. The percentage of hunters of the US population is dipping below 4% — from there it is just a matter of time before hunting will advance to the dustbin of history.
The most likely underlying socio-economic explanation of uptick in the number and percent in 2011 and the subsequent resumption of the downturn in 2013 is found in Responsive Management. Pg17-18.
Among those variables, the rate of new housing starts was significantly related to decreased license sales: as housing starts increased, hunting license sales decreased. The correlation could be a result of two things or a combination of them: that increased urbanization simply takes away access and available lands, and/or that the increased construction activity could leave less time for some hunters to go hunting (Phase III found that many hunters work in the construction industry)
From 2010 through 2011 the nation experienced a major economic down-turn with a corresponding reduction in new housing starts. The most common occupation of hunters is in the building trades, there was less pressure to not hunt that year due to job commitments which is usually the major reason for active hunters to not hunt in a particular year. With the recovery of the economy in 2012 including new housing construction the downward trend of number and percentage of hunters resumed.
In summary, hunting is declining in number of hunters as well as percentage of hunters of the total population. There may be an occasional uptick due to temporary underlying socio-economic conditions. The general trend is steadily downward, regardless of the attempts to recruit and retain a more diverse population of hunters.
Sources
- Responsive Management/National Shooting Sports Foundation. 2008. The Future of Hunting and the Shooting Sports: Research-Based Recruitment and Retention Strategies. Produced for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under Grant Agreement CT-M-6-0. Harrisonburg, VA
- U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006.