Decline in hunter dollars troubling

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Forty percent of Americans age 16 and older, some 101.6 million people, engaged in some form of wildlife-related recreation in 2016, according to a report released last week. While the number of anglers and wildlife watchers increased from 2011 to 2016, hunting participation dropped by about 2 million to a total of 11.5 million.

The 2016 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, conducted nearly every five years since 1955 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is an important benchmark used for evaluation and planning purposes by federal and state governments, industry and the news media.

The report showed the largest gain, a 20 percent increase, was made in watching and photographing wildlife. Fishing participation grew from 33.1 million in 2011 to 35.8 million last year with the greatest increase — 10 percent — in the Great Lakes region that includes Pennsylvania.

Wildlife management in the United States is paid for primarily with hunter dollars generated through Pittman-Robertson Act excise taxes on guns, ammunition and license fees, which generate about $175 million to $325 million per year for managing wildlife. Anglers THIS WEEK: Should the general public pay for wildlife management? • Yes • No • LAST WEEK: Should public funding pay for the monitoring of wild trout, whose presence is used to determine water quality? pay a similar tax, but nonhunting, non-fishing outdoor recreationists pay no such tax on equipment.

Club news

• Lenny Lichvar, Fish and Boat Commissioner and coauthor of “Keystone Fly Fishing” (Headwater, 2016) will speak at the Sept. 11 meeting of Penn’s Woods West Trout Unlimited (pwwtu.org).

• Post-Gazette outdoors editor John Hayes will discuss Fish and Boat’s recent Wild Trout Summit at the Sept. 13 meeting of TriCounty Trout Club (facebook.com/Tri-CountyTrout-Club).