Are Maine Hunters and Anglers Disappearing?
Submitted by Roberta Scruggs on Thu, 09/20/2007 - 5:18pm.
Are Maine's anglers and hunters disappearing or not? It all depends on when you start looking.
The state's sportsmen, especially hunters, have worried for decades about declining numbers and influence. So some folks were pretty surprised recently to read an optimistic analysis of Maine's hunting and fishing license sales by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
"Maine is bucking the trend, with hunting licenses stable, and fishing licenses increasing over that same 10-year span," the press release reported. In 1996, there were there were 267,158 licensed anglers in Maine. In 2006, there were 279,262, an increase of 4.5 percent. In the same period, sales of hunting licenses edged down only half a percent, from 210,183 to 209,165.
The press release came out in response to preliminary figures from the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, which showed a 15 percent decline nationally in anglers and a 10 percent drop in hunters since 1996. (Visit http://federalasst.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html for survey results.)
"Certainly, we are concerned with the national downward trend of sporting licenses," IFW Commissioner Danny Martin said in IFW's release, "but we are pleased to see that the efforts of this department seem to be offsetting a similar downward trend in Maine."
What the release doesn't say is that Maine fishing license sales peaked in 1990 and hunting license sales in 1981. So if you compare last year to 1996, things look stable. Go back a little further, though, and the decline is fairly dramatic.
Hunting license sales have dropped 12 percent since IFW sold 238,476 in 1981. But what's more interesting is that sales dropped 13 percent from just 1981 to 1986 and have basically stayed at roughly the same level ever since. Not coincidentally, that was when the annual deer kill dropped to its lowest point since the 1930s. So to rebuild the deer herd, IFW started the any-deer permit system in 1986, which controlled the number of does killed. That helped deer increase to historic levels in southern and central Maine, but hunters kept declining.
Just look at the 10-year averages. Total hunting license sales averaged 225,779 from 1977-1986, dropped to 217,960 from 1987-1996, and then to 209,583 from 1997-2006.
And you could argue that total license sales don't accurately reflect the decline, since they include all the licenses one hunter might buy, including archery, expanded archery, muzzleloader, etc. So let's look at a figure that Gerry Lavigne, IFW's long-time deer specialist, calculated for years - sales of resident licenses that permit deer hunting, including regular hunting, combination fishing and hunting, junior hunting, serviceman and, more recently, the lifetime license and Superpack. Maine's avid hunters are included in this group - but only once.
Again 1981 was the peak, with 197,697. Sales dropped 22 percent, to 154,808, in 1997, and haven't changed much since. The average for the past decade was 156,620. So roughly 40,000 resident hunters were lost and never regained.
Non-resident hunting license sales also have declined, peaking in 1989, at 45,303, and dropping to 37,327 last year, the lowest since 1984.
Fishing boomed a little more and a little later, with total license sales peaking at 310,278 in 1990, and dropping 16 percent, to 261,753, by 1997. Since then annual sales have averaged 271,452. Sales of non-resident fishing licenses dropped nearly 30 percent from their peak in 1989 to last year, when 76,534 were sold.
In the national survey, hunters and anglers cite many reasons for quitting, including not enough time, family/work, health, and no one to hunt with. But I think Lavigne, who retired in 2005, discovered something important back in 1998. While researching a new 15-year deer management plan, he studied the ages of 3,418 hunters who were surveyed in 1996. Lavigne divided the hunters, who ranged from 16 to 92, into four generations: pre-World War II (born before 1925), World War II (1925-45), Baby Boomers (1946-1970) and Generation X (born after 1970).
Lavigne found Mainers born after 1970 chose to hunt less than half as often as Baby Boomers or the World War II generation. In 1996, only 10.5 percent of the state's 18- to-24-year-olds bought a hunting license, compared to around 20 percent of those 25 to 64.
So maybe it comes down to demographics and desire. Perhaps Maine's big boom in hunting and fishing simply came when the World War II generation and Baby Boomers were hunting and fishing at the same time. Then the World War II folks started dropping out and license sales dropped with them.
Now the Baby Boomers are starting to hit their 60s. How long will they hunt and fish? And how many younger hunters and anglers will step forward to pay IFW's bills and speak out for Maine's hunting and fishing heritage? As Lavigne said in 1998, "Society's changing."
The state's sportsmen, especially hunters, have worried for decades about declining numbers and influence. So some folks were pretty surprised recently to read an optimistic analysis of Maine's hunting and fishing license sales by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
"Maine is bucking the trend, with hunting licenses stable, and fishing licenses increasing over that same 10-year span," the press release reported. In 1996, there were there were 267,158 licensed anglers in Maine. In 2006, there were 279,262, an increase of 4.5 percent. In the same period, sales of hunting licenses edged down only half a percent, from 210,183 to 209,165.
The press release came out in response to preliminary figures from the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, which showed a 15 percent decline nationally in anglers and a 10 percent drop in hunters since 1996. (Visit http://federalasst.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html for survey results.)
"Certainly, we are concerned with the national downward trend of sporting licenses," IFW Commissioner Danny Martin said in IFW's release, "but we are pleased to see that the efforts of this department seem to be offsetting a similar downward trend in Maine."
What the release doesn't say is that Maine fishing license sales peaked in 1990 and hunting license sales in 1981. So if you compare last year to 1996, things look stable. Go back a little further, though, and the decline is fairly dramatic.
Hunting license sales have dropped 12 percent since IFW sold 238,476 in 1981. But what's more interesting is that sales dropped 13 percent from just 1981 to 1986 and have basically stayed at roughly the same level ever since. Not coincidentally, that was when the annual deer kill dropped to its lowest point since the 1930s. So to rebuild the deer herd, IFW started the any-deer permit system in 1986, which controlled the number of does killed. That helped deer increase to historic levels in southern and central Maine, but hunters kept declining.
Just look at the 10-year averages. Total hunting license sales averaged 225,779 from 1977-1986, dropped to 217,960 from 1987-1996, and then to 209,583 from 1997-2006.
And you could argue that total license sales don't accurately reflect the decline, since they include all the licenses one hunter might buy, including archery, expanded archery, muzzleloader, etc. So let's look at a figure that Gerry Lavigne, IFW's long-time deer specialist, calculated for years - sales of resident licenses that permit deer hunting, including regular hunting, combination fishing and hunting, junior hunting, serviceman and, more recently, the lifetime license and Superpack. Maine's avid hunters are included in this group - but only once.
Again 1981 was the peak, with 197,697. Sales dropped 22 percent, to 154,808, in 1997, and haven't changed much since. The average for the past decade was 156,620. So roughly 40,000 resident hunters were lost and never regained.
Non-resident hunting license sales also have declined, peaking in 1989, at 45,303, and dropping to 37,327 last year, the lowest since 1984.
Fishing boomed a little more and a little later, with total license sales peaking at 310,278 in 1990, and dropping 16 percent, to 261,753, by 1997. Since then annual sales have averaged 271,452. Sales of non-resident fishing licenses dropped nearly 30 percent from their peak in 1989 to last year, when 76,534 were sold.
In the national survey, hunters and anglers cite many reasons for quitting, including not enough time, family/work, health, and no one to hunt with. But I think Lavigne, who retired in 2005, discovered something important back in 1998. While researching a new 15-year deer management plan, he studied the ages of 3,418 hunters who were surveyed in 1996. Lavigne divided the hunters, who ranged from 16 to 92, into four generations: pre-World War II (born before 1925), World War II (1925-45), Baby Boomers (1946-1970) and Generation X (born after 1970).
Lavigne found Mainers born after 1970 chose to hunt less than half as often as Baby Boomers or the World War II generation. In 1996, only 10.5 percent of the state's 18- to-24-year-olds bought a hunting license, compared to around 20 percent of those 25 to 64.
So maybe it comes down to demographics and desire. Perhaps Maine's big boom in hunting and fishing simply came when the World War II generation and Baby Boomers were hunting and fishing at the same time. Then the World War II folks started dropping out and license sales dropped with them.
Now the Baby Boomers are starting to hit their 60s. How long will they hunt and fish? And how many younger hunters and anglers will step forward to pay IFW's bills and speak out for Maine's hunting and fishing heritage? As Lavigne said in 1998, "Society's changing."
The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.
- Roberta Scruggs
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