Results from a Wildlife Survey

[twall13]

I recently received a survey in the mail regarding hunting, fishing, and wildlife observation. With the survey, which i filled out and mailed back, I received the flier below with results from a similar survey from 2011. The survey is a few years old but I doubt too much has changed and I thought the results may be interesting to some of you on here. A few of the charts aren't the easiest to follow but I particularly found two statistics very interesting.

1. Only 52% of hunters did any target shooting in preparation for hunting. I don't care if you are talking rifle or bow, that number is simply too low in my opinion.

2. People spent $27.2 Billion dollars on equipment to "watch" wildlife independent from hunting/scouting, etc. Imagine if there were a tax similar to Pittman Robertson on that equipment... That would be a lot of $$$ for wildlife conservation.

What are your thoughts on the statistics?

Wildlife survey0006
Wildlife survey0013

 

[ozyclint]

from an outsider, the bias of hunters and fisherman paying for the conservation enjoyed by all is wrong.

 

[wl704]

A) survey results are from 2011?
B) without showing the actual questions asked, there is plenty of room for bias and creative interpretation...i.e. in the off season I watch animals;my kids watch animals add they wander across our property yet they don't hunt them...etc
C) why are my tax dollars paying for these surveys (note indicates it seems to be Govt initiated/sponsored)

 

[twall13]

A) survey results are from 2011?
B) without showing the actual questions asked, there is plenty of room for bias and creative interpretation...i.e. in the off season I watch animals;my kids watch animals add they wander across our property yet they don't hunt them...etc
C) why are my tax dollars paying for these surveys (note indicates it seems to be Govt initiated/sponsored)

My assumptions were that the survey was similar to the one I answered yesterday when they sent it to me in the mail with this flier. Supposedly the survey is performed every 5 years. I agree, there could be some misleading interpretations but the questions related to "watching wildlife" specifically asked me to exclude hunting/scouting trips and only include trips with the specific intent to view wildlife. The examples they used for this category were feeding wildlife, photographing wildlife, bird watching, etc. They even asked how many of those trips I had to travel at least 1 mile from my residence for. It also asked me to respond for my children on their hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing activities.

I don't have a problem with a research study being performed with tax dollars as long as the results go towards something useful (which in this case I have no idea on whether or not that's happening). If it helps show I value wildlife and public grounds, I'm all for it as another piece of evidence to help the case for preserving those resources. Edit: Also, I don't know for certain this was funded by tax dollars but based on the names involved I would guess that is a fair assumption.

 

[MuleyFever]

A) survey results are from 2011?
B) without showing the actual questions asked, there is plenty of room for bias and creative interpretation...i.e. in the off season I watch animals;my kids watch animals add they wander across our property yet they don't hunt them...etc
C) why are my tax dollars paying for these surveys (note indicates it seems to be Govt initiated/sponsored)

All surveys can be easily manipulated. You could send a survey to only inner city people about hunting related topics and probably get some interesting stats. As far as your comment about tax dollars. You could probably swap "surveys" for just about anything.

It is interesting how few people out of all big game hunters hunt elk.

 

[wl704]

All surveys can be easily manipulated. You could send a survey to only inner city people about hunting related topics and probably get some interesting stats...

It is interesting how few people out of all big game hunters hunt elk.

Exactly.

And with about 1/3-1/2 the full US population on the east coast states, likely a much lower proportion of elk hunters overall.

Working around the data and analytics industry, I see data, analytics and stats used and misused. Without insights on the methods, data and handling I tend to be skeptical till proven otherwise.

 

[twall13]

It is interesting how few people out of all big game hunters hunt elk.

I found that interesting as well. I know Whitetails are the most hunted big game animal in the U.S. but I didn't realize it was by such a wide margin.