National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Recreation

The outdoor recreation industry that I am part of is changing as I have written before. Some of the trends have been predicted but are beginning to become reality. I was sent a link to the results of the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a press release that gives an overview of the report at www.fws.gov.
 
The upshot of the report is that in 2006, more than 87 million Americans, or 38 percent of the United States' population age 16 and older hunted, fished or observed wildlife. They spent $120 billion that year pursuing those activities - an amount roughly equal to Americans' total spending at all spectator sports, casinos, motion pictures, golf courses and country clubs, amusement parks and arcades combined.
 
The report shows that between 2001 and 2006, the total number of anglers dropped by 12%, and hunters by 4%. The number of wildlife watching participants went up by 8%. After losing ground in the early 1990s, wildlife-related activities such as bird watching and photography increased 13 percent over the last decade.
 
Maine Outdoors does not at all match these trends but I can see some similarities. First the number of wildlife watching trips that I am doing is definitely up. In fact I have had two this week. My other trips are up as well but they have changed over time in terms of expectation and the amount of time that folks are willing to spend. All of my trips are shorter than they used to be and now aimed more at a beginner level. Yes I do have the long time expert fisherman but many more of the once a year fisherman or the first time fishing trip, especially my family fishing trips.
 
Since it seems that everyone is crunched for time maybe we need to make these activities more readily available or simpler to get into. Because wildlife funding is derived from taxes on hunting and fishing participants we need to figure something out sooner rather than later.
 
The full report is available at: http://library.fws.gov/nat_survey2006.pdf.