Number of Americans Who Hunt and Fish Declining

Filed in archive Fishing on September 6, 2007

Hunting is not an outdoor activity I blog about regularly, but after reading a this Yahoo! News article, maybe I know why.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, the number of hunters has declined by 10 percent, from 14 million to 12.5 million. Why? Expects blame urbanization and money for the dramatic decrease. Another outdoor activity affected was fishing. The number of Americans who fished has also decreased 15 percent from 35.2 million to 30 million.

In New Hampshire, only multiple fee increases - which produced numerous complaints - have enabled the Fish and Game Department to keep revenues robust. Its ranks of registered hunters has dropped from 83,292 in 1996 to 61,076 last year, according to department spokeswoman Judy Stokes.

"We hear concerns about land access," Stokes said. "People grew up hunting - you went out with your family, your uncle. And now you go back, and there's a shopping plaza or a housing development. Some of your favorite places just aren't available anymore."

National hunting expert Mark Damian Duda, executive director of Virginia-based research firm Responsive Management, says America's increasingly urban and suburban culture makes it less friendly toward the pastime.

"You don't just get up and go hunting one day - your father or father-type figure has to have hunted," Duda said. "In a rural environment, where your friends and family hunt, you feel comfortable with guns, you feel comfortable with killing an animal."

Indeed, hunting remains vibrant in many rural states - 19 percent of residents 16 and older hunted last year in Montana and 17 percent in North Dakota, compared with 1 percent in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Nationally, 5 percent of the 16-and-over population hunted in 2006, down from 7 percent in 1996.

As their ranks dwindle, hunters are far from unified. The often big-spending, wide-traveling trophy hunters of Safari Club International, for example, have different priorities from duck hunters frequenting close-to-home wetlands.