I would suppose that this recent study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, proves once again that statistics prove that statistics can prove anything. I have lived for 55 years and during that time I have seen scientific studies draw conclusions that were overturned a short while later as the result of a different study. There are even studies now to show that studies can be misleading. So what do we do with studies?
Good question. I would suppose that there is some good in everything, right? So, if that is the case, we should take each study for what it is, extract from it things we find of value and appear to be accurate and perhaps learn something from it.
This recent study shows that Americans are not enjoying nature like they used to. There are several articles written about this report and like mine, they focus on perhaps one aspect of it. I was reading the story published at NPR.org and came across an interesting statement that I found puzzling, among other assorted emotions.
“We’ve got data for hunting licenses, fishing licenses, three different data sources for camping and backpacking and hiking,” Pergams says.
All of these data sets go back at least 20 years, and they show that a few outdoor activities have remained popular. One in 10 Americans has gone hunting every year for the past several decades. And the overall number of backpackers, while relatively minuscule, has actually risen slightly.
The report claims that hunting and backpacking are exceptions to the national trend of opting for something other than a visit to the outdoors. But this statement alone is confusing, at least to me it is, and maybe it’s because I am wanting to read into it more than I should be.
Take the one statement that says, “One in 10 Americans has gone hunting every year for the past several decades.” In an attempt to better understand what is going on with hunters in America, I have to ask if this means that generally speaking, each year for decades at least 1 in 10 Americans are out hunting? Or does it mean that that one hunter has hunted every year for decades? There is a difference.
But let’s look closer. Oliver Pergams, who explains the study for NPR, says that they have extensive data collected for many years.
Pergams teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For several years now, he has been collecting outdoor head counts kept not only by national parks, but also by state and local parks, the U.S. Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management and commercial polling firms.
Let’s round the U.S. population to 300 million. Pergams says that 1 in 10 Americans hunt every year. That’s 30 million! This number doesn’t agree with the numbers recently released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for their 2006 survey(pdf) that claimed there were 12.5 million hunters. This is substantially different. Who has the grasp on what is really going on?
I’m not sure I can honestly answer that question but can only point out the differences in the reports. Pergams claims to collect data from several sources - head counts kept not only by national parks, but also by state and local parks, the U.S. Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management and commercial polling firms.
The study conducted by USFWS seems to have been done more as a polling survey.
We consulted with State and Federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations such as the Wildlife Management Institute and American Sportfishing Association to determine survey content. Other sportspersons’ organizations and conservation groups, industry representatives, and researchers also provided valuable advice.
Once consulting was completed to determine what content would be sought for the survey, the actual survey, according to the explanation given, was conducted in two parts.
The first phase was the screen which began in April 2006. During this phase the Census Bureau interviewed a sample of 85,000 households nationwide to determine who in the household had fished, hunted, or wildlife watched in 2005, and who had engaged or planned to engage in those activities in 2006. In most cases, one adult household member provided information for all members.
And part two:
The second phase of data collection consisted of three detailed interview waves. The first began in April 2006 concurrent with the screen, the second in September 2006, and the last in January 2007. Interviews were conducted with samples of likely anglers, hunters, and wildlife watchers who were identified in the initial screening phase. Interviews were
conducted primarily by phone, with in-person interviews for respondents who could not be reached by phone. Respondents in the second survey phase were limited to those who were at least 16 years old. Each respondent provided information pertaining only to his or her activities and expenditures. Sample sizes were designed to provide statistically reliable results at the state
level.
Is the data more accurate taken by Pergams’ group because it was actually head counting? Perhaps but I’m left with questions from the information of both studies.
One of the reasons I asked exactly what was meant by 1 in 10 Americans hunted is because with the USFWS survey, there doesn’t appear to be any means of tracking hunter activity from year to year. Let me try to explain. If a person is being surveyed and asked if they hunted that particular year, they may answer no. Perhaps his entire family didn’t hunt that year. Not built into the method, at least that I can tell, is whether that same person hunted in previous years and if so, which.
Why is this important? I know many people who, when asked, would declare themselves to be a hunter, yet may not have hunted for a year to several years. On the same token, a person and perhaps several family members all bought hunting licenses but unforeseen circumstances prevented them from hunting that year.
The point to this whole discussion is that one study states that the number of participants in hunting has remained solid for several decades with 30 million Americans taking part. The USFWS study says 12.5 million Americans hunted in 2006 and that number has been steadily dropping. Who’s right?
Tom Remington
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I guess if Black Bear Blog readers had their chance, they would just as soon put Al Gore on an iceberg and set him adrift, somewhere…..anywhere. The latest not-so-scientific Black Bear Blog poll showed 58% of readers (at total of 73) thought Al Gore should be sent sailing. 
The latest Black Bear Blog unscientific poll taken of participating readers, verifies for me what I have claimed and suspected for quite some time - that the loss of lands to hunt on is one of the major factors in any reduction of hunting participation.
The results of the latest Black Bear Blog unscientific reader poll shows a vast majority of them intend to vote in their respective upcoming presidential primaries. 79% (66 voters) said they would be voting in the primaries while only 21% (18 voters) said they would opt out.
Is the sky falling? You look up and see nothing, so you answer no. Put another way, scientists at NASA believe that over the next 10 years, tons of space junk will fall from the sky. Do you believe the sky is falling?
We 
Periodically we run polls here at the Black Bear Blog. Sometimes we run them for a week, and other times we keep them alive for 2 weeks or more. We like to get feedback from our readers on how they view our topics and some of the things that are happening in the world of hunting, shooting, fishing, and the outdoors all across North America.