The talk all around the country of late has been about the preliminary results of a survey done by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicating that participation in fishing and hunting nationwide continues to decline. Fishing is down around 13% and hunting 4% but in Maine, fishing license sales have increased over the same 10-year period and hunting license sales have have gone up and down but overall have held steady.
Ken Bailey at Village Soup, says that when you compare the trends of hunting and fishing in Maine with participation at our three biggest parks, Baxter, Allagash and Acadia, Maine’s hunting and fishing trends are doing quite well.
During recent years the number of people using the Allagash dropped by nearly 70 percent, visitor use at Acadia dropped 23 percent, and the number of people trekking into Baxter State Park is 25 percent lower than a decade ago.
If taken in perspective, the drop in hunting and fishing seems small. The total number of anglers has dropped around 13 percent since 2001, and the number of hunters is down 4 percent during that same period.
It is my understanding from a report done last year about visits to our parks nationwide, the trends in Maine mirrored the national trends. Looking at the glass as being half full instead of half empty, when you keep things in perspective as Bailey points out, the lifestyle changes are such that going outdoors is not a high priority.
If nationwide downward trends in hunting and fishing are only running 4% and 13% respectively, compared to park visitor declines, I would have to agree with Ken that perhaps we should be looking at this as a success story and not a gloomy forecast.
The key now is to figure out how we are going to get our citizens back out into the outdoors to enjoy what previous generations have worked so hard to make available to their kids and grandkids.
Ken Bailey suggests that it is time for all groups, hunters, fishermen, hikers and tree huggers to sit down and figure that out.
We can all sit around and moan about the shrinking outdoor usage, especially among our younger generation, or we can do something about it. It’s time for hunters, anglers, trappers, hikers and so-called tree huggers to sit down together and find a solution to this lack of interest in our outdoors.
If the number of outdoor participants declines, we as a state and nation lose the broad-based interest and dedication to protect our wild lands and our traditional activities. If no one hunts, why worry about the animals. If few people use our state and national parks, why spend more money to keep them open and to make improvements. If no one cares …
Maybe he’s right. Perhaps it is time.
Tom Remington
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