An update of the nationwide hunter demography study

Modernizing forces such as urbanization, technological change, and associated socio-cultural shifts are changing the socio-ecological context of wildlife conservation across North America. Concurrently, participation in... [ view full abstract ]

Modernizing forces such as urbanization, technological change, and associated socio-cultural shifts are changing the socio-ecological context of wildlife conservation across North America. Concurrently, participation in hunting and fishing has declined ubiquitously, with a resulting reduction in wildlife conservation revenue. Stemming this decline is of keen interest to state wildlife agencies as evidenced by vast agency and NGO resources invested in a proliferation of hunter recruitment and retention programs. Yet, despite its salience to wildlife agencies, little is known about the nature of recent participation declines or the extent to which they will continue into the future. In 2012, we conducted an age-period-cohort analysis on hunting and fishing license sales in many states across the U.S. We found that cohort effects clearly drive participation. Individuals born between approximately 1958 and 1978 were the most likely to hunt and fish. These data definitively demonstrate hunting and fishing are not tied to specific life stages; rather, there is a twenty-year cohort of hunters/anglers moving through different life stages that have experienced high participation rates throughout their lives. In 2017, this study was repeated to update information regarding hunting and fishing patterns, as well as to expand the geographic and political extent of the data. We found continued support for cohort effects being the strongest influence to hunting and fishing participation. Further we proffer suggestions to the conservation community to consider in perpetuating the conservation calling.