Wildlife Watchers Are Aging the Most
08/15/2003

Still another comparison is insightful. The antis and doomsayers would have you believe that hunting recruitment is too low and that hunters are aging and dieing off. When the Survey results were first announced, Heidi Prescott, the National Director of the Fund for Animals commented in a press release, “The End of Hunting is in Sight.” She said that “[t]hese are long term trends, not just a blip in the numbers, and we’re delighted to see that more and more people are trading their guns for cameras…The end of hunting is no more than a generation away.”

The truth is that wildlife watching is far worse off. There are a lower percentage of young wildlife watchers than hunters. Only thirteen percent (13%) of wildlife watchers are in the 25-34 age groups while nineteen percent (19%) of the hunters and the anglers are in that class.

Wildlife watchers are older. Nineteen percent (19%) of wildlife watchers are sixty-five years of age or older, while only seven percent (7%) of hunters and eight percent (8%) of anglers are in that class. Adding the three age groups 45-54, 55-64, and 65 and over, is really revealing. More than half of wildlife watchers, fifty-seven percent (57%), are in the 45 and above age classes. Only forty percent (40%) of the hunters and forty-two percent (42%) of the anglers were forty-five and over in 2001. What is even more remarkable is how much older wildlife watchers would be if sixty-two percent of hunters and fifty-eight percent of anglers were not wildlife watchers, thus lowering the age percentages because of their inclusion. The younger hunters among wildlife watchers make them appear more youthful than they would otherwise be.

That having been said, the antis want to eliminate wildlife watching too. They want to eliminate all dominion and interference with wildlife and animal life. They want to close zoos, circuses, parks, and access to land. Their strategy is to divide to vanquish. Perhaps hunters are actually fortunate that wildlife watchers enjoy wildlife too.

Take solace in the fact that there are 45 million people in the U.S. that have hunted and 111 million people who have fished as anglers, which is 115 million when those who fished for the first time in 2001 are included. Nevertheless, hunters and anglers are minorities. No one and no organization will ever change our minority status, yet we are not alone. Minorities are the norm for nearly every activity. We are a big one.