The Hunting Type: Recruiting Conservationists on College Campuses

Hunters in the United States numbered nearly 17 million in 1980. By 2016, the number had fallen to 11.5 million, according to data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That survey found that 90% of hunters are male, 97% are white and most are 45 and older—a sign that future funding losses could be steep as more hunters age out of the sport and the country becomes more racially diverse.

“State agencies are unsure of what to do next because 60-80 percent of state agency budgets comes primarily from hunting, fishing license sales and equipment purchases,” explains Lincoln Larson, associate professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. “The conservation financial landscape is bleak.”

The connection between hunting and wildlife conservation

With less money coming in from hunting and fishing licenses and sales taxes, state officials throughout the country realize that to keep their conservation and wildlife agencies afloat they must recruit hunters for whom the activity is not a passed-down tradition.

“The decline in hunters is equivalent with the decline of available revenue,” said Daniel Eichinger, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in a Recruiting Foodies and ‘Hipnecks’ as the New Hunters from The PEW Charitable Trusts. “That decline absolutely has the attention of every state across the country.”

While not all college students are hunters, it turns out that most college students support wildlife conservation, which is primarily funded by hunters and anglers. This has been the case since the 1800’s when citizens began to ask if wildlife populations could continue to exist at healthy levels without checks on hunting. The legal framework that has since developed grew out of a set of principles now known as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Said differently, hunters and anglers were among the first to crusade for wildlife protection and remain some of today’s most important conservation leaders.

“It doesn’t matter who students were or where they were from,” Larson said. “Funding wildlife conservation is something all young adults can get behind, which bodes well for newly introduced federal legislation such as the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.”

What type can pull the trigger or release the bow?

Even hunting advocates acknowledge that recruiting adult hunters is a heavy lift. Hunting can be expensive, and accessibility to land is often a challenge. The time commitment is significant, and many people remain uncomfortable around firearms. Many also hold cultural stereotypes that make them believe they would not relate to other hunters.

Torey Vayer, who recently completed her Master’s degree in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, has worked with Larson on promoting the concept of the “nontraditional pathway to hunting.” Her research focus includes understanding and influencing college students hunting related beliefs and behaviors. Larson and Vayer surveyed college students from 2018 to 2020 to understand students’ perspectives on hunting. Their findings were reported in The Journal of Wildlife Management.

NTPHers: Foodies, ‘hipnecks,’ women and people of color

States have begun targeting new groups to fill the ranks of hunters: foodies, city-dwellers, young adults, people of color and women. Rather than counting on family heritage and cultural ties to carry the hunting message, they’re preaching the gospel of ethically sourced food, healthy protein and respect for wildlife. State programs around the country are developing experiences to teach adults to hunt, process and cook game.

Larson found similar insights from an earlier study in central New York State showing the growing interest in hunting by “locavores,” a group motivated by the desire to eat food grown, raised, produced, or harvested locally. Larson and Vayer are keen to share more stories of the NTPH type and explore college campuses as a place to recruit and ideally retain tomorrow’s hunters.

“I think out of all the things I learned through grad school,” said Vayer, “one of the most useful skills is becoming a better science story teller and being able to share the research we’re doing to wider audiences outside of academia. Dr. Larson and I want to share the stories about traditional and tomorrow’s hunters, particularly the social connections directly impact experience and interest in hunting.”

“Too often, research on hunting and recruitment efforts focus on active hunters or people that are part of the larger hunting social world and that’s a very homogenous group,”  explains Larson. “Our research is showing there is an enormously large sample of students who aren’t part of that social world that are incredibly interested in hunting.”

Current conversations on conservation, hunting and the three Rs

Recently featured on two podcasts, Larson and Vayer can be heard discussing the non-traditional hunter as well as the R3 movement, an initiative created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to recruit, retain and reactivate new participants or increase participation of current or lapsed outdoor recreationists.

Jason Crighton, Founder and CEO of Conserve the Wild, interviewed Larson and Vayer on his conservation related podcast, The Conservation Unfiltered. A teacher by profession and active promotor of outdoor activities, Crighton created Conserve the Wild  to combat negative effects of urbanization/loss of habitat, education on conservation issues.

• Listen to The Conservation Unfiltered podcast: Episode 89: The Good and Bad of the R3 Movement
  Hear about the human dimensions of natural resources and science communication as well as how they play a part in hunting. Other topics covered include hunting’s place in American society, changing demographics, and the untapped pool of potential hunters at universities

On the Modern Carnivore podcast, Publisher Mark Norquist interviewed Larson and Vayer to discuss recruiting hunters and how college campuses may play a role in those efforts. Modern Carnivore is dedicated to re-connecting people to healthy meat options and introducing them to a lifestyle of “direct harvest” that includes foraging, fishing and hunting. No experience required.

• Listen to the Modern Carnivore podcast: Episode 027: Data Driven Hunter Recruitment
  Learn insights into the future of hunter recruitment and the importance of listening to people that hunt as well as those that might want to try to hunt. Hear how social support networks are a critical component for experienced hunters and those who’d like to go hunting as well as Vayer’s explanation of ‘egoistic’ and ‘altruistic’ hunting.

Stay Tuned: More hunting workshops coming to campuses around the country

State programs are developing experiences to teach adults to hunt, process and cook game. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is an excellent resource for hunter education and has partnered with NC State to offer instruction that goes beyond firearm safety to include ethics and responsibility, conservation and wildlife management, wildlife identification, survival and first aid, specialty hunting and tree stand safety.