You can expect that Southwick Associates will always come up with interesting statistics regarding hunting, fishing and shooting.
In it latest release, Southwick notes that more than 500,000 United States hunters went afield outside this country over the past three years. By far - and not surprisingly - the big go-to destination was Canada where 47 percent of this country's international hunters went.
Africa saw 23 percent, Mexico saw 9 percent, South America saw 7.6 percent, and Europe and Australia each saw 5.5 percent.
Over the past three years these American hunters contributed $3.6 BILLION in new economic injections, Southwick said.
And Southwick has judged that of the total number of hunters and shooters, 6.9 percent were age 18 to 24, 31.3 percent were age 25 to 44, 47.9 percent were age 45 to 64, and 13.8 percent were age 65 and older.
Obviously this demographic group is made up largely of members from the Baby Boom Generation with a dismally small fraction of the younger set. That doesn't speak well of the future of hunting and shooting.
On a different note, nearly 26 percent of the nation's hunters and target shooters belong to a conservation group - something that needs improving on, as well.
Also, Southwick has found out, hunters and anglers by a huge margin trust state fish and wildlife agencies over any other source. Fully 54.4 percent of anglers and 50.7 percent of hunters said they trusted state fish and game agencies the most.
Fish and game non-profit groups scored well also.
Alas, print and video media didn't fare very well. Got to see improvement there too because there's no way else to go but up.
- Jeffrey L. Frsichkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
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