As hunters, it is your duty to honor, respect and protect the lands you harvest on. We think of this as avoiding overhunting, picking up trash, respecting property lines and maintaining the natural habitats, but it’s more than that. It also includes a duty to respond to any hunting surveys you might receive. Yes, those annoying emails that your instincts tell you to move right to the “junk” folder. Resist the urge to purge. Take a moment to open the survey and share your honest thoughts and experiences. When you do, your voice contributes to conservation in an even more meaningful way than hunting does. You’re making a difference not just for yourself, but for future generations of hunters.
Jenifer Wisniewski, chief marketing officer for the National Deer Association, knows firsthand just how important this data is for conservation. “We continue to not just understand public perception and how hunting and shooting sports are perceived, we are continuing to do our work in a way that helps the public understand the benefit of the whole system of wildlife conservation,” Wisniewski said. “When someone takes a survey, they’re giving us the information that we need to be in tune with what they want. Any actions that we take, whether through regulation or communications, will have the right effect on the resource.” State agencies don’t know what they don’t know, so tell them.
You might be thinking to yourself, “Who even sees my answers? They just send those surveys out to anyone.” Tina Johannsen Ph.D., assistant chief of game management at the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, notes that everyone who receives the survey is chosen for a reason. “Who receives a survey from us is a process of winnowing down to a pool that is hopefully inclusive of all potentially affected by the subject of the survey and that will provide a sample of survey responses that is statistically defensible.” The goal is to send it to a diverse group within a targeted subject matter to generate stats that represent an accurate sample of the target issue.
From there, Wisniewski confirmed that your responses go to the right hands. “We share results from these types of projects as far and wide as possible so that agencies, non-government organizations and others in the conservation community can use the results to inform the work that they do going forward,” Wisniewski said. If the survey has a company like DJ Case or Responsive Management attached to it, don’t let that deter you. Those are the companies that format the raw data into a clear picture so that the state agencies can use that data immediately and effectively in their conservation initiatives. It’s like if a parent asked one of their children to find out what all the siblings want for the holidays. The child gathers all the information and sends it to the parent in one place. The child is the survey company and the parent is the state agency. One person gathers data while the other interprets and implements it.
“We did a webinar for the Nexus of Deer and R3 about a month ago and had 167 people on that call hearing about the research,” Wisniewski said. “There is a big appetite for this type of research so that we don’t make decisions based on our feelings but based on actual hunter perceptions.” If you think the only people that get heard are the few that shout the loudest, add your voice to the mix. Responding to the surveys helps give a megaphone to otherwise silent voices.
Wisniewski can point to some hard data facts that support the idea that research does make an actionable difference. The National Deer Association discovered through survey research that while many hunters are willing to mentor a new hunter, they often just don’t think to offer. That kickstarted the “Come With” marketing campaign from Outdoor Stewards of Conservation, which generated $1.1 million in license sales for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The National Deer Association’s research also discovered four distinct motivations for hunting that they designated as “personas.” They were: “Family First,” those who hunt as a social activity with their family; “Self-Sufficient,” those who hunt so they don’t have to rely on stores for meat; “Locavores,” those who hunt to reduce their environmental footprint by not contributing to the preservatives, fossil fuels and chemicals that go into processed foods; and “Recreationalists,” those who enjoy the challenge. Those personas were then targeted in a marketing campaign designed to recruit or reactivate hunters. Through the campaign,They were able to increase license sales in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina for the following deer hunting season.
Johannsen noted that a previous survey about the nationwide decline in turkey populations showed them that the hunters that responded to the surveys answered in a way that indicated they need more education on overall hunting trends. The data showed that most hunters bag one bird per season or they don’t bag any at all. But their support for reducing the bag limit indicated they think that will help the turkey population, when in reality most hunters don’t meet the bag limit as it is. “Support tended to be greater for actions that have the least impact on any one person’s opportunity to hunt, regardless of the actual effectiveness of the action,” Johannsen notes. “While research suggests that opening the season later is the action most likely to have a positive impact on turkey populations, it is also an action that affects all hunters. We were therefore glad to see that a majority were at least somewhat supportive of delaying the season opening date but not surprised to see that a significant proportion were strongly opposed. This confirmed that we would need to make a strong case and do a lot of outreach to successfully change the season. Being able to counter the loudest minorities with actual numbers relative to hunter support/opposition is a valuable tool. If hunters do not know about an issue or do not support the agency’s decisions, we have a hard time implementing scientific management actions.” This makes the survey responses critical to revealing the areas the agencies need to target with education.
Be on the lookout for the ATA’s survey, “Bowhunting in the U.S. Market Study: Updated Insights into Bowhunter Attitudes, Motivations, and Economics,” set to go out this summer. The survey is in collaboration with Responsive Management and state fish and wildlife agencies. Its goal is to update data from a 1999 study to reflect current trends. We know that many bowhunters start as recreational archers, so the survey hopes to discover where the best place is to reach recreational archers and what messaging they might respond to so that we can hopefully extend their path to bowhunting. View our recent Crossbow Market Study as an example of an ATA-backed survey. See for yourself what kind of data is gathered and the impact it can make.
Now that you know how much of a difference your survey responses can make, the next time you get a hunting survey in your inbox, please respond. You could help shape conservation for generations to come.
