Weblog Entry - 12/12/2002: "Hunters:Their Brains were Small and then they Died"

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12/12/2002 "Hunters:Their Brains were Small and then they Died"

Demographic shift threatens NRA, outdoors groups
By Evan Osnos
Tribune national correspondent
December 2, 2002
YARMOUTH, Maine -- Once or twice a week this fall, high school freshman Davis Asherman dons a kid-size camouflage jacket, pulls a warm hat over his dyed-green hair, and heads out with his dad to hunt for ducks.
Asherman, 15, is following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, but new statistics indicate that his children might not.
In a trend with broad political consequences, government data show a distinct decline in the number of American hunters, the outspoken outdoorsmen who helped turn the National Rifle Association into one of the nation's most powerful lobbying groups.
"Hunters have traditionally been the mainstay of the pro-gun movement," said professor Robert Spitzer, a gun-politics expert at the State University of New York at Cortland. "But if this decline continues, and there isn't much reason to believe it won't, over the next couple of decades there is going to be a major shift in the base and nature of gun practices in America."
The American population soared in the past decade, yet the number of adult hunters fell by 7 percent to 13 million nationwide, according to a new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
More important, according to hunting boosters and analysts, the pool of young hunters such as Asherman is not deep enough to offset the loss of older devotees leaving the sport or dying.
"Everything is going in the same direction. License sales are down. Total hunters are down," said George Smith, head of the Sportsmen's Alliance of Maine, the state's powerful hunting association. "We have got the Youth Hunting Days, and those have been a success. But we're still not rebuilding hunter numbers. The demographics just aren't there."
Amid the national downturn, hunting maintains solid footholds in parts of the country, and it even grew measurably in a dozen states, such as South Dakota, Minnesota and Alaska, which retain vast rural stretches. Still, from Maine to Georgia and Illinois to California, America's busiest hunting grounds are facing declining turnout.
The trend is reshaping political debate in traditionally gun-friendly states, draining the coffers of wildlife agencies that depend on license fees, and spawning cultural standoffs between hunters and suburbanites, many of whom resent guns in their parks and wooded lands.
NRA reshaping itself
The trend is spurring the 4-million-member NRA to redefine its image as a more conservative voice of urban gun owners and 2nd Amendment advocates.
"Hunting is a very important segment of our membership, but people own guns for a variety of reasons, and the No. 1 reason is self-defense," said Chris Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist.
The drop reflects many currents in American life from the spread of suburbs into rural land to the rise of year-round youth athletic seasons.
Loyalists see its decline as the death of a rugged, simpler way of life in which fathers took their children out to open lands to hone their shooting skills and possibly bag dinner.
Critics such as the Fund for Animals say killing animals for sport simply has failed to attract significant interest beyond its core of aging white males in a country that is more diverse every day.
Many in Yarmouth, a coastal town in Maine, still recall the time, a generation ago, when students would store their shotguns in the principal's office after an early morning bird hunt. But these days, many students are no more likely to hunt than their big-city counterparts.
"If I'm going to get up two hours early before school, it's going to be to play hockey," said Rob Kurtz, a Yarmouth High School senior. "I tried hunting once as a kid, but it never did it for me. I never got into it."
Groups target youth market
The gun industry and sportsmen's groups have launched aggressive recruitment efforts, ranging from hunting-themed toys to outings, in hopes of snaring younger and more diverse adherents.
Since 1990, the National Wild Turkey Federation, a hunters group in Edgefield, S.C., has invited 9,000 urban youths to its annual conventions to learn about the outdoors. The non-profit Becoming an Outdoors-Woman organization has grown since 1991 to offer weekend workshops for 20,000 women each year nationwide. For less-energetic newcomers, the Buckmasters brand Deer Huntin' video game is encased in a plastic toy rifle that lets users peer into a plastic scope and shoot at digital deer.
Despite these recruitment efforts, the number of hunters continues to decline. The largest drops have occurred in states with fast-growing suburbs, including Massachusetts, California, Delaware and Illinois. The Fish and Wildlife Service study, based on phone surveys, shows the number of Illinois hunters is down 31 percent since 1991, to 310,000. State figures, based on license sales, show a drop of 12 percent. Even so, officials say, that dip has cut license revenues by $500,000 to $6 million last year.
"When you have revenue falling at that rate, it's a major concern," said Tim Schweizer, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "That is the revenue you use to pay biologists and to do the work of wildlife management, so when that falls, it is a major problem."
The effects also ripple through rural restaurants, equipment suppliers and other businesses that depend on hunters. In Wisconsin this year, a dearth of hunters--deterred by the deer-borne illness known as chronic wasting disease--is threatening to sap $100 million from the state's tourism industry.
Wildlife officials in Georgia expect hunter numbers there to fall 52 percent between 2006 and 2025.
Strongholds face standoffs
As hunting fades, the sport is encountering political opposition in some of its traditional strongholds. Six towns in Maine have passed or considered hunting restrictions in the past two years, limiting where, when and how animals can be killed.
Town leaders in Yarmouth suspended hunting last fall in a 250-acre wooded park amid concerns that cross-country skiers and dog walkers could be shot accidentally. The ban sparked soul-searching in the town and, ultimately, hunting was allowed to resume this fall, albeit with stricter rules.
To Smith, of the Sportsmen's Alliance, the debate hinted at more standoffs to come.
"In my 53 years in Maine, we have never been so challenged by anti-hunters," he said.
Nationally, advocates on both sides of gun issues say the sag in hunting will have a more gradual impact in Congress than in state legislatures, particularly regarding gun control. With both houses of Congress and the White House in Republican hands, gun-control activists say they do not expect success in the near future. In its most recent survey, Fortune magazine last year declared the NRA the country's most powerful lobbying group.
Gun-control lobby pleased
Still, many gun-control advocates celebrate the decline of hunting as a long-term factor in their favor. As the NRA seeks new supporters among conservatives, the gun-control lobby sees a chance to persuade moderate gun owners to back "sensible gun control."
"As the NRA sheds its hunters, they are left with the hard-core members," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control group.
To some pro-gun lawmakers, however, fewer hunters in Congress already means fewer allies.
"You get people coming to Congress now who don't know a shotgun from a rifle, or a bolt-action from a semiautomatic," said Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), an opponent of gun control and founder of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. "It's obvious when they make speeches about guns that they don't know what they're talking about."

Copyright (c) 2002, Chicago Tribune

Millions of people in the United States want to live out their lives in peace, however, these same people are forced to live in oppression because of hunters that take/kill defenseless Wildlife.

Hunters not only "take" away Wildlife. Hunters also "take" life, liberty, freedom, dignity, and the Pursuit of Happiness away from Non-Hunting human beings! Hunters never think of how their actions negatively affect other people by shooting towards people, homes, pets, livestock, & vehicles. Hunters deny others their basic Rights to live in peace.

Hunting defenseless Animals has no positive future. Hunting has always been frowned upon, widely criticized, and questioned as to why people hunt? When grocery stores carry frozen Deer, Rabbit, Duck, and Fish. At least if hunters would walk into a grocery store and buy the "wild game" instead of placing other peoples lives in jeopardy of being shot and/or killed, there would be more innocent human and animal lives ALIVE instead of threatened with gun violence? Gun violence from hunters? Yes, if anyone has heard a high powered Deer rifle 150 yards at 5:00 A.M. when a person is attempting to sleep, stress that is unbearable? The stress from this explosive deadly weapon causes your whole body to jerk in motion from the echo!
Hunting has makes Non-Hunters' sick, causes mental trauma, basically destroys Non-Hunters' from their insides. Because frankly, hunting animals is sickening!

With more and more people, pets, and livestock being shot and/or killed by hunters stray bullets, reckless gunfire is one problem people can do without!
People wanting to view nature, work in their pasture, walk, and/or hike through their woods or trails, should be allowed to do so without some hunter shooting a high powered rifle, shotgun, or pistol towards the other person that just wants to live in peace!
As for KNOWING about rifles and shotguns, sure I've studied about all types of guns and people, and I have come to the conclusion that hunters use guns to terrorize people and nature!
How do I know this, because my family and I have been through a living hell for the past ten + years because of hunters perpetrating a war on Wildlife and People!

And the comments made about, "how people coming to Congress cannot tell a shotgun from a rifle or a bolt action from a semi-automatic", made by Representative Collin Peterson (D-Minn.). Newsflash, We have had assault weapons pointed towards our family and myself for reasons unknown to us by HUNTERS!
We have heard the bullets zinging over our heads from HUNTERS!
What difference does the type of gun used as a tool to terrorize others is called? All guns kill and destroy human and animal lives! That's what they are manufactured for! Hunting declining? It's about time people really learned about the truth about hunting from the former victims and families of gun violence from hunters! Ask many ex-wives of hunters, mention the word,"hunting" and the lady goes into a frenzy! Thank you.

Sincerely,
Rex Stuart
President
The Non-Hunter Rights Coalition

Posted by Rex Stuart @ 12/13/2002 02:36 AM CST

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