HUNTER-FISHERMAN CHARACTERISTICS: FACTORS IN WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AND POLICY DECISIONS

by ROBERT S. BOND and JAMES C. WHITTAKER, respec- tively Associate Professor of Forestry Economics, University of Massachusetts Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, Amherst, Mass.; and Assistant Professor, University of Maine School of Forest Resources, Orono, Maine.

ABSTRACT. Research on the characteristics and motivations of hunters and fishermen is examined for factors important to resource managers and policy-makers. Characteristics related to the learning experience, time for participation, utilization and accessibility of the resource base, and the type of fish and game harvested are con- sidered. Motivational research, although in its infancy, suggests that participation in these sport activities has importance other than for only the taking of fish or game. In-depth motivation research is needed.

URING THE PAST decade re- ones, usually showing some interesting D searchers associated with land and associations. Interesting to whom? As rec- water resources have focused atten- reation researchers-campers, hunters, fish- tion more and more on the so-called ermen-we have often considered this outdoor recreationist. Social scientists, espe- question. cially those with an undergraduate educa- In our association with the regional tech- tion in, or a casual acquaintance with, one nical committee that undertook a "Con- of these resources, have conducted research sumer Analysis of Forest-Oriented Outdoor to study participants in one of many activi- Recreation Activities in the Northeast," ties-camping, hiking, boating, skiing, hunt- (N.E.M. 35), we were called upon in the ing and fishing. The impetus for this work annual reports to indicate the usefulness of gained momentum with publication of the the findings. This is always a challenge! Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Most of us resorted to the rationale that the Commission's reports, some of which dealt information collected and presented about with participants in recreation in general the characteristics of hunters and fishermen and others with particular activities. is useful to managers and policy-makers. Many recreation-participant studies have We have never been asked to prove this described the characteristics of the user in contention - and would probably have a terms of socio-economic, demographic, and difficult time to do so. The most objective participation criteria. These criteria are proof derives from requests for publica- analyzed by correlating a varie tions. pendent factors against certain in Future managers and policy-makers will benefit by studies similar to those done by age (Nosh 1962): "A thousand case studies the N.E.M. 35 Committee because they . . . of adults with recreation skills indicate serve as benchmarks with which later skills were established before studies can be compared. The value of thethat age o 6 and fully 90 percent before the data-assimilating research is sometimes ques- age of 14." tioned because it lacks depth. On the other We found that the average hunter was hand, it is well to know the situations exist- 38 years old and the average fisherman 40. ing at various points in time and thereby to The average number of years that they be able to predict trends. had participated was 21 and 26 years re- It may be presumptuous of us-because spectively. This means that, on the average, we are not in the position of manager or hunters learned this sport at 17 and fisher- policy-maker, nor are we trained in re- men at 14. It should be pointed out that source professions dealing directly with hunting is precluded by law before a cer- wildlife or fish-to attempt an examination tain minimum age, which varies by state. of the utility of knowledge about charac- We found that 84 percent of the hunters teristics of hunters and fishermen as they and 93 percent of the fishermen partici- relate to management and planning. How- pated in these activities in their youth (16 ever, it may be helpful to those of you who years or younger). Hunters, on the average, are in this position to have our views on participated alone at the age of 16 years the manner by which we perceive how in- and fishermen at 13 years. formation from studies of hunter-fisherman These statistics seem to verify the early characteristics may be interpreted. learning experience contention. Admittedly, I The research on which much of this we have no knowledge about those people paper is based was done by an interdisci- who no longer hunt or fish but did so in plinary group from six Northeastern States their youth. To make these statistics rele- -New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Penn- vant to the manager and policy-maker we sylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia. need to consider other characteristics Economists with agricultural and forestry known about these sportsmen. backgrounds, a rural sociologist, and a wild- One of these factors is the source of life biologist comprised the committee. The learning. For both hunters and fishermen, diversity of outlook, aIthough a deterrent 70 percent were introduced to this activity to the development in one sense, proved by a parent or other relative. Asked if they valuable in the long run. Our views have took any children under 16 years of age been influenced by varied disciplines. with them to participate in these activities during 1965, 27 percent of the hunters said they did and so did 59 percent of the fisher-

I CHARACTERISTICS men. Parents and relatives will undoubtedlvJ have an increasingly less important role in Consider some of the characteristics about introducing children to hunting and fishing which information has been gathered, and as they reside in urban areas where the what possible meaning they have to the resource base is not as easily accessible. policy-maker. The statistics we have are from the hunter-fisherman phase of N.E.M. Another characteristic needs considera- 35 (Bevins et al. 1968). Four general areas tion: the rurality of residence during child- of knowledge about hunters and fishermen hood. Seventy-two percent of the hunters are: the learning experience, time for par- and 68 percent of fishermen said they spent ticipation, utilization and accessibility of most of their childhood in a rural area. It is the resource base, and type of fish and difficult to define a rural area, and obvi- game harvested. ously there is some relativity involved in the individual's internretation. We can onlv assume that althouih rural ~assachuse& ~ Learning Experience and Maine, as extremes, are diffierent, they 1 A number of sociologists have shown each offered about the same opportuni that, if people participate in a recreational hunt and fish. Seventy-eight percent o7'" the activity, they learned to do it at a young Maine hunters spent their childhood in a rural area as compared with 67 percent of decisions relating to management and those in Massachusetts. For fishermen the policy-making. percentages were 72 and 62 respectively. Evidence for the apparent importance of Time for Participation a rural background in youth as a commit- When and how much time is devoted to ment to hunting and fishing can be ob- hunting and fishing by today's sportsman? served from A4aine and Massachusetts About three-quarters of our respondents findings. Different percentages of rural said that they would like to hunt or fish backgrounds were found for persons in more than they do, and that for hunters Maine who hunted only, 77 percent; fished (we did not ask fishermen) time was the only, 64 percent; and both hunted and most frequently mentioned constraint; 79 fished, 83 percent. In Massachusetts a percent so indicated. similar relationship held true: hunted only, Approximately one-third of the respond- 58 percent; fished only, 54 percent; and ents for each s ort worked more than a both hunted and fished, 69 percent. A 40-hour week. fhree-fifths had a Saturday- greater proportion of people who partici- Sunday days-off pattern, about one-sixth pate in both sports came from rural areas reporting only Sunday free during the nor- during childhood, thus indicating the mal work week. Therefore, slightly over greater influence of a rural background to three-fourths of the respondents had only the combination activity. weekends for these activities unless they The thing about rurality that is impor- lived close enough to the resource to enable tant is the number of people today who are them to do so before or after work. living in a rural situation. The statistics are It might be assumed that because week- roughly the inverse of what were found for ends are the predominant leisure time, an hunters and fishermen: today 70 percent of effort would be made by hunters to have the population is urban. Projections for Sunday hunting legalized. Maine nonresi- future populations are that the Nation as a dent sportsmen were asked if they favored whole will be 75 to 80 percent urban Sunday hunting; 44 percent did, 28 percent within the century. did not, and 28 percent did not answer. Of Obviously the learning experience in those not answering, 84 percent were fish- hunting and fishing is going to be consid- ermen only. Because Sunday hunting would erably different for much of today's youth facilitate participation by nonresidents, and those of the future than in the past. greater support could have been anticipated The opportunity, and thus the desire to for this question. participate, in such sporting activities will Three-fourths of the hunters and fisher- encompass a diminishing segment of the men took vacations. These varied in length, population. This is already evidenced in a third having 10 days or less and a third the declining rate of increase in license having 21 days or more. Important to the sales over the past few years in a state such vacation statistic is the degree of use of this as Massachusetts. If one assumes a desire to vacation for hunting or fishing. Forty-one maintain a high level of interest in hunting percent of the hunters used some portion and fishing for the many benefits one can of their vacation to hunt, and 55 percent attribute to them, a method of fostering the of the fishermen used part of it to fish. The learning experience of urban and suburban greater activity by fishermen is related to youth may be required. the concurrency of vacation time and fish- Until the present, fish and game man- ing season. Also, fishing is more closely agers and policy-makers have focused their tied to activities enjoyed by families, such attention primarily on providing game and as swimming and boating. fish. They have emphasized the biological If a hunter uses vacation time to hunt, he aspects of perpetuating the species. Future will devote more hours to it than the fisher- emphasis on the user of the resource, man will to fishing. The lesser time spent whether he hunts or fishes or simply ob- by fishermen probably reflects family in- serves, is going to require a reorientation in volvement and the need to share vacation time activities. The hunter may expressly over the years in this pattern of owning a take a vacation to go hunting and not be resource base on which to participate is not accompanied by his family. known. The more rural the hunter and These findings imply two things for the fisherman population, probably the greater resource manager. First, an effort is needed the likelihood of resource ownership and to make the resource more readily available. thus the easier its accessibility. Second, applicable only to hunting, is that It is evident from these statistics that where Sunday hunting is excluded, chang- private and public land ownerships are ing the law would provide more time to heavily relied upon as a base for participa- the hunter during existing seasons. In the tion. For the region, dependency on either six participating states, only Vermont and type of ownership appears to be equally certain rural New York counties allowed it. shared. However, there is often some ques- Another way of achieving more time tion whether the sportsman knows who the would be to extend seasons, but this might landowner is. Taking into account the fact not be feasible on a supply-and-demand that the Northeastern States are predomi- basis. In fact, simply permitting Sunday nantly in private ownership would place an hunting might require curtailing the length inordinate pressure on the existing public of season in order to perpetuate certain land base for hunting. This implies the need game species. for additional public land or public sub- The question of satisfying demand is sidization for management of private lands foremost; yet there is good reason for to promote game availability. close regulation. Obviously the hunter can- A further implication is the need to not have all the time he would like to have maintain or improve access to private lands. for hunting. In Maine and Massachusetts Strangely enough, however, at the time of there is perennial legislation before the this study, access did not seem to be a Legislature to ermit Sunday hunting. It is problem, because in the region only 17 inevitably deP eated, but nat from the percent of the hunters and 11 percent of rationale of perpetuating game species. the fishermen indicated it as a problem. The most urban states had the most hunt- ing accessibility problems-New York (2 3 Utilization and Accessibility of Resource Base percent), Massachusetts (2 1 percent), and Pennsylvania (19 percent). This may indi- A relatively small proportion of hunters cate that with urbanization come greater (25 percent) and fishermen (20 ercent) access problems and an increased need to belonged to a sportsman's group. & those provide for public sponsorship of the re- that did, about one-third were in a dub or source base. group that owned land for hunting or The availability of the resource base for fishing; and 20 percent of the hunters and participating in hunting and fishing activity, 10 percent of the fishermen were members as well as other outdoor recreation, will be of clubs that leased lands for these purposes. an increasingly perplexing problem. Pro- Only 6 percent of the hunters reported grams are underway in many states to using club lands to hunt. improve access. As an example, in Maine As might be expected, individual land and Massachusetts, boat-launching facilities ownership for hunting purposes was not have been constructed in recent years. Also, extensive, although perhaps 24 percent is Massachusetts has an active more than would be anticipated. Twenty- land acquisition for game and rograrnsh manage-Of three percent of the hunters said that they ment areas. The free use of the resource hunted on lands owned by them in their base has been the accepted norm in the State. Leasing of hunting and fishing rights United States throughout its history. Ex- by individuals was negligible. The owner- cluding recreationists from private lands is ship of camps for the primary purpose of becoming more common. The reason for hunting (15 percent) and fishing (8 per- posting land may be to control use rather cent) varied greatly among the States. than to preclude it However, even the Just how much change has occurred hunter and fisherman, who are the ones excluded, supported the right of private Fish and Game Harvested landowners to prohibit these activities on We are not going to elaborate too much their lands-88 percent of the hunters and on the species of game and fish taken for 72 percent of the fishermen. The rights of two reasons. One, there is obviously a high private land ownership are apparently well correlation between game and fish sought entrenched and respected by these sports- after and their indigenous availability. men. Second, we begin to tread on even un- Hunting and fishing as a marketable steadier ground than heretofore, because of activity is accepted by a fairly substantial the biological aspects of game management. number of hunters (43 percent) and fisher- If one examines the regional and state men (38 percent), but not b the majority. statistics, the correlation between species The price that people are wiY ling to pay for availability and what is hunted or fished is a day of activity is not large. Only 5 per- apparent. Deer, small game mammals, and cent indicated a willingness to pay over $5 upland game birds (excluding turkey) are per day for hunting small game and fishing hunted most, in that order. Massachusetts and 20 percent over $5 per day for hunting and West Virginia are the only States big game. where deer is not uppermost in importance. The six States in which the regional The deer is replaced by upland game birds study was conducted produced some un- in Massachusetts and by small game in West expected contrasting findings about willing- Virginia. In Maine, upland game birds rank ness to pay to hunt and fish. The two most second in importance. rural States, Maine and West Virginia, In popularity, the fishes in the six States were at the extreme ends of the spectrum. rank this way: trout, bass, panfish, pickerel, In Maine, 33 percent of the hunters were and pike. In Maine, salmon ranks second; willing to pay to hunt, while in West and in West Virginia bass outranks trout. Virginia 59 percent were. Thirty-three per- The ranking by states varies greatly. cent of Maine fishermen indicated a will- Are these really preferences? Biological ingness to pay, in West Virginia 50 percent. constraints act td inhibit changing species The reason for the differences in willing- composition in most states; therefore, ness to pay between hunters and fishermen what is indigenous is preferred. Some steps in these States appears to be due to avail- can and are being made toward introducing ability of the resource base. Even though other species, but both the economic and land is plentiful in West Virginia, its use is ecological impam are being more fre- more restricted. Also, the availability and quently questioned. quality of bodies of water for fishing in One thing that resource managers might Maine are far greater than in West Vir- do is to change preferences of the con- ginia. In Maine, water bodies larger than sumers-hunters and fishermen. By making 10 acres come under the Great Ponds Act, available more native species, participation which requires that they be accessible to in the activity might be enhanced. The bag public use. Control of the resource base or catch may not be the sole reason for seems to be a major factor in willingness to participation. To change species prefer- pay for sport hunting and fishing. ences, people manipulation is necessary, as An ever greater opportunity presents opposed to managing fish or game. A little itself to market hunting and fishing; and in of the Madison Avenue advertising strategy some States, sale of these rights is already could be helpful. The commercial fisheries common. The day may come when hunt- industry is attempting to change consumer ing and fishing on private lands will be preferences by convincing people that pol- available only at a price. Whether the par- lock is as good as haddock. This is an ticipant or the general public pays a a attempt to alter demand to place it in policy question. balance with supply. An entirely neur facet in managing and the proof of manliness, the challenge of policy-making may be attributed to those locating the game-all of these things seem recreationists who seek game only for ob- to be an integral art of the actual experi- servation purposes. Their objectives are ence of hunting. $he display of game and different from those of the hunter, so they the enjoyment of eating it is also important. create an entirely new set of factors to be Dr. Spaulding, a sociologist at the Uni- considered. versity of Rhode Island, has a complex analysis of information collected from 15 1 mail-questionnaire respondents who were MOTIVATIONS boat-using fishermen. In his conclusions he Motivation and attitude research for this lists six attributes that sport fishermen group of recreationists-and in fact for all would miss if they had to stop fishing: (1) forms of activities-is in its infancy. Our Experiencing the euphoria-tension dynamic, association with this work has been minimal. (2) catching fish, (3) involvement with The study about hunters by Thomas A. some aspect of the environment, (4) inter- More (1970), as yet unpublished, was done personal relationships and aesthetic attri- at Massachusetts under Bond's direction. butes of the environment, (5) experiencing Boat-using sport fishermen were studied in transition from one situation to another, Rhode Island by Irving A. Spaulding and (6) personal integrative responses. (1970). Each of these researchers used a The point to be illustrated by very briefly different approach, and their findings are citing these two motivational studies is that limited in scope but serve to illustrate a there is obviously more to participation point. than killing game and catching fish. There In both of these studies an attempt was is a need for the resource manager and made to discover why people participated policy-maker to consider these things in in these activities and what they derived their decisions. The interpretation of the from them. In both, it is our interpretation findings as they bear upon decisions is not that the enjoyment of participating was not conclusive, but there is obviously some so much the success of the harvest but the important input information to be gained many experiences related to the activity. from this type of social-psychology re- Using factor analysis, More was able to search. isolate seven factors illustrating attitude motivations of hunters. He did this by submitting 52 statements, attitude objects, FUTURE RESEARCH to a randomly selected sample of licensed We have considered two forms of Massachusetts hunters. The attitude objects hunter-fisherman research. One concerns were ranked by respondents on a five-step the characteristics of present participants; scale from strongly agree to strongly dis- the other an attempt to look within the agree. A measure of consistency of re- person to uncover the whys and satisfac- sponse within the seven factor groups, tions derived from hunting and fishing. An termed an Eiginvalue, was used to measure attempt has been made to show how both the factor strength. The seven factors in forms have utility to the manager and order of declining Eiginvalue are: display, policy-maker who is called upon to provide aesthetics, communality, pioneering, the the basics to participation-resource base kill, familiarity, and challenge. Although (environment) and commodity (fish and the Eiginvalue may be a poor measure for game). ranking importance, it can serve as an Future research can be greatly enhanced indicator. by the decision-maker telling the researcher What his findings seem to indicate is the what it is that he feels needs to be known importance of the things associated with about hunters and fishermen. The N.E.M. hunting. Showing off guns, the enjoyment, 35 Regional Committee, in its planning, beauty, and tranquility of being in forest contacted State fish and game agencies and and field, the communality of associates, asked for assistance. Some was provided, the escape from everyday responsibilities, but probably not enough. A follow-up question to accomplished lends itself more readily to an examination research should be: do managers and of demand than a free-use participatory policy-makers find it useful? There are two commodity. worthwhile reasons for doing this research: it provides a norm for later studies, and it In-depth research into the motivations should have current usefulness to those and attitudes of hunters and fishermen is having responsibility for resource manage- needed for a better understanding of the ment and policy-making. values they place on participation. The Future research should be valuable in surface is just being scratched in this re- providing inputs into the decision-making search field. It is imperative that the re- process. We need to build some models source specialist contribute his knowledge and collect data that will help this process. to the social scientists doing this research. We need to know, first, what is needed, Better still, professional resource personnel rather than simply going out and collecting who are so inclined can become social a lot of information. scientists and, having backgrounds in both Research in studying people is even more fields, can contribute to a greater degree complex than controlled experiments. A than those researchers having knowledge marketable and consumable commodity of a single discipline.

References

Bevins, Malcolm I., and others. TIME ASSOCIATIONS IN OUTDOOR RECREATION AND 1968. CHARACTERISTICSOF HUNTERS AND FISHER- EDUCATION. In TRENDS IN AMERICAN LIVING AND MEN IN SIX NORTHEASTERN STATES. Univ. Vt. OUTDOOR RECREATION. ORRRC Study Rep. 22: Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull. 656. 76 pp. 157-180. More, Thomas A. 1970. MOTIVATIONALATTITUDES OF LICENSED MASS- Spaulding, Irving A. ACHUSETTS HUNTERS. Univ. Mass. Dep. Forestry 1970. VARIATIONOF EMOTIONAL STATES AND EN- and Wildlife Manage. M. S. thesis. 49 pp. VIRONlMENTAL INVOLVEMENT DURING OCCUPATIONAL Nash, Jay B. ACTIVITY AND SPORT FISHING. Univ. R. I. Agr. 1962. THEENLARGING ROLE OF VOLUNTARY WISURE- Exp. Sta. Bull. 402. 78 pp.