The news story is below. Kind of sad really and a little disturbing. I think it reminds everyone how important it is to introduce children to hunting.
Studies: Interest in Hunting Fading
Thu Mar 10, 2:19 PM ET
U.S. National - AP
By ANGIE WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
As a teenager, Bryan Dinkins and his grandfather would go out before dawn on many a winter morning to hunt duck. They would quietly discuss school and life while waiting for the birds.
Dinkins, now 40, hasn't been hunting in six years. He's too busy, he says, and anyway it would take six hours to drive somewhere to hunt ducks in California.
It's a common lament in the new century, a time when urbanization and hectic lives can get in the way of hunting traditions. Hunting now is not just about when to go, but where to go? How much will it cost? And, more than ever, who will go?
"If we think about how the country was explored and developed, it was hunters, it was trappers," said Steve Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "If we lost that, I think in some way we lose part of the American character."
Across the country, the number of hunters declined from 14.06 million to 13.03 million, or 7.3 percent, from 1991 to 2001, according to the Census Bureau (news - web sites) and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The drop was greater in the West "” 9.6 percent, from 2.46 million to 2.22 million.
Hunting has survived through generations by fathers passing the tradition on to their children, and families bonding during hunting trips. But many people have given up on hunting, or never tried it at all.
The decline in Western hunters came even as the population jumped. California had the largest drop "” from 446,000 to 274,000, or 38.6 percent "” followed by Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. Washington, Wyoming, Oregon and Hawaii had slight declines.
Most hunters said in the 2001 Census and in the Fish and Wildlife survey that they did not hunt as much as they would have liked because they were too busy or had family or work obligations. The reasons were the same for those who gave up hunting altogether, another study found.
As the West becomes more urban, with new residents flocking to cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, development inevitably leads to fewer hunting lands.
"A generation or so ago, it was still possible to take a son and daughter out to the country, knock on a farmer's door and be out in the field hunting in pretty short order," said George Cooper, spokesman for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
"That's how young people got into hunting. Loss of habitat due to sprawl and landowner worries about liability have made that sort of old-fashioned access hard to come by," he said.
Those who rely on private land often find they must pay for the privilege, and it can be expensive. Duck hunting for the season may cost $10,000 on a private hunting preserve.
Eventually, it will be up to children to carry on the tradition. But a study by Responsive Management, a public opinion research firm for natural resources issues, found if people are not exposed to hunting before they are 16 or 17, they likely will not hunt as adults.
And the more people grow up in urban areas, the less likely they are to be exposed to the hunting culture, said Mark Damian Duda, executive director of the group.
"That's the big, broad demographic trend that's taken its toll on hunting," he said.
Many states are promoting hunting by sponsoring outreach programs and youth hunts.
But the state fish and wildlife agencies that are working to recruit and retain hunters face their own threats. Most depend on hunting license sales for money, and as the number of hunters drops, programs are cut and jobs are left unfilled.
California is suffering the worst. The game warden staff has been cut by 25 percent over the last few years; budgets for wildlife managers have been slashed; maintenance is lacking.
"We had counties where we didn't even have a warden present," said Lorna Bernard, spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game.
It's a delicate relationship that hunters and state agencies share. States depend on hunters to help fund their conservation projects and to control animal populations.
"Traditionally, the people that have paid for and cared for wildlife have been hunters and anglers," said Steve Huffaker, director of Idaho Fish and Game and past president of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
"If we lose that support base, then we're concerned who's going to be there to take up the needs of fish and wildlife in the future," he said.
The more it fades, the higher the demand will become for qualified hunters to maintain urban and suburban damage control.
I read a story a while back about the wealthier homeowners in the Pittsburgh burbs bragging about having their "own bowhunter" to help control the deer numbers that are eating their landscaping into oblivion.
I read a story a while back about the wealthier homeowners in the Pittsburgh burbs bragging about having their "own bowhunter" to help control the deer numbers that are eating their landscaping into oblivion.
Like I posted on another thread, I got a buddy that is hired by the 4 county area as a sharpshooter to take out deer that are wandering into the "citified" areas. He actually gets to take out deer in people's back yards. Guy is apparently an unbelieveable shot, never saw him in action though.
I think the main reason is as the article states---people are too busy. It's sad. Too busy to even stop and realize that their life has flown by and they didn't even take the time to enjoy it. We have all these gadgets, improvements, and technology that are supposed to make life easier, and give us more free time because everything is supposed to be done faster,quicker, with less effort.
Does anybody feel they are gaining in free time or that life, in general, is better than it was yesterday
I guess i was just born about 115-120 years to late or maybe 185-190 years--I haven't decided yet
__________________
Looney tunes deductive reasoning:
--Me smell Mohican burning
--Me last Mohican
--Must be me!!!
--EEEOOOWWW!!!!!
There are only so many things we have any control over and we ought to think about and focus on them. Indeed, take your children out hunting. Take neighbor children hunting. What can we do about farmers jacking up hunting lease prices? Look for a more generous farmer. I don't know, but is it principally the hunting lands with the big bucks that are jacking up prices? If your hunting emphasis is trophy hunting -- read "BIG ANTLERS" -- it is just a fact of life that an industry has grown to sell the best trophy opportunities at the highest prices. Maybe the focus ought to be on a good hunting experience and less on how big the antlers are. Certainly some people have to drive a long way to go hunting, and this costs money. I drive 250 miles to another state to hunt deer because I can hunt deer free on that land. I pay about $200 more for my license, being a non-resident, but this is substantially less than I would have to pay additional for a hunting lease in Texas.
This is a sad fact to see. There are countless people I know that don't hunt anymore. Some of older guys would LOVE to get back out into the woods, but they long gave up their place or it was bought out from under them. Therefore they don't have no place to go anymore.... [&o][:-]
Those Wildlife Management Areas? Pfffffffttt!!!! Yeah, right... Here is a rough quote from what a guy I know said... "Opening day firearms season? Man, you'll be taking your life into your hands!" Then he went on to say... "Heck, I hunted one time and got there real early. I scouted it out and knew my tree for my stand overlooking a small stream. Once the sun came up, I never saw so much blaze orange in my life - the friggin place looked like a pumpkin patch!"[:@]
Long story short, the guy said he got so pi$$ed off, he just packed it all in and went home. And this is a guy who is/was a seasoned hunter with decades of experience, but doesn't have a private place anymore.
I guess urban development and the ever expanding suburbs are rapidly growing and will knock off any last hope of gaining private land for hunting. Sadly, the sport of hunting might end up becoming a "pay as you go" type of thing.
Around here there is plenty of interest but the places to go are getting less and less.
The big money people have them tied up.
This leads to another problem, road hunting and trespassing.
A few years ago you could hunt anywhere, the land owners where crying for people to hunt and thin out the turkeys and deer. Now they lease their land to others that only hunt occaisionally and the deer and turkey are overwelming the land in certain areas.
What goes around comes around.
This is nothing new, we have known about it and discussed it countless times in one way or another over the past years. Why does it strike a chord only now that it has been published by a major wire service?
More importantly, why did AP choose this time to publish it? Is this intended as an actual information piece or is it intended as a cheerful side note to the antis and their supporters. The hunting community has no friends in the publishing industry that I am aware of, so why do they invest time and space to publish an article that increases the awareness of a dwindling number of hunters.
In the late 20th century and beyond, Americans have far more leisure time. Add to that the fact that we have far more choices as to what to do with that time...In a matter of 4 or 5 decades we've seen an exponential increase in access to those new choices.
When hunting and fishing we're all a boy or his father could do, thats what they did.
AP: Studies: Interest in Hunting Fading
[:@]
