by
Robert E. Cleary
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Washington, D.C.
U.S.A.
Needs for information on the use of new water resources led to the first national fishing and hunting survey in 1955. Such a survey has since been repeated every five years. Survey techniques have evolved. The major fisheries' findings are given, and the design of the 1975 National Survey - started in 1976 - is detailed. It is being carried out in two stages, firstly a telephone survey, secondly a follow-up survey by mail, and its cost is estimated at U.S. $ 1 million. The report will be released at the end of 1976.
Le besoin d'informations sur l'utilisation de nouveaux plans d'eau a conduit à la première enquête nationale sur la pêche et la chasse en 1955. Depuis lors, des enquêtes analogues ont été renouvelées tous les cinq ans. Les techniques d'enquête ont évolué. On donne les principaux résultats rassemblés sur les pêches, ainsi que le plan détaillé de l'enquête nationale de 1975 - commencée en 1976; elle est affectuée en deux phases: une première enquête par téléphone sera suivie d'une enquête par correspondance; dont le coût est estimé à U.S. $ un million. Le rapport en paraîtra à la fin de 1976.
In the fifties there was an accelerated growth in U.S. Public Works' programmes involving water development projects, especially large flood-control reservoir construction. Attendant with this increased construction cadence, the U.S. Congress passed a series of legislation aimed at safeguarding the nation's fish and wildlife resources which, it was anticipated, would be adversely affected by this construction programme.
In reacting to the professional and legal incumbencies resulting from these actions, the fish and wildlife management agencies of the day came to an almost uniform realization that information on use and values of these resources was sketchy at best. With the active support of national conservation agencies as well as the sporting arms and fishing tackle industries, the first national survey of fishing and hunting was conducted in 1955. Each five years since that date the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reconducted the survey in a manner quite similar to the initial survey procedures.
In addition to collecting statistics on hunting and fishing participation, the surveys supplied information as to the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of those who hunt and fish. Over time, the data collected have been used to develop indices and trends in public demands for recreational hunting and fishing opportunities, as well as proxies for user-day values. The information derived from the surveys is used by both State and Federal Fish and Wildlife Agency administrators as an aid in allocating resources and making policy decisions concerning the management of the fish and wildlife resources in their particular responsibility area. In like manner, associated industries used the data as part of their marketing analysis.
The National Surveys are funded under provisions of the Federal Aid in Fish and Wildlife Restoration Acts. This legislation provides grant-in-aid to States for work on sport fish and wildlife restoration, conservation and enhancement. Monies are derived from an 11 percent manufacturer's excise tax on the sale of sporting arms and ammunition and a 10 percent tax on articles of fishing tackle and equipment. In fiscal year 1975, these monies amounted to U.S.$ 75 million and were apportioned to States according to a prescribed formula which is based on licensed sportsmen and available hunting and fishing habitat. The funds used to finance the surveys are part of these excise tax receipts reserved for the Federal administration of the programmes.
At the request of the State fish and game agencies (the primary users of the survey data), the 1975 survey was altered in both scope and detail from previous efforts to provide State-level reliability for certain categories of information and to increase the scope of coverage for both non-consumptive wildlife associated recreation and benefit evaluation estimates.
Persons included in past National Surveys of Fishing and Hunting were actually a sub-sample of persons previously selected from the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted monthly by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The CPS provides an accurate cross section of the population and is conducted on a nationwide basis in 449 areas, each area being a county, or group of counties, and cities spread throughout the 50 States and the District of Columbia. Half of this sample, or about 24 000 households with some 60 000 persons 9 years of age or older, were screened for inclusion in these surveys.
The procedures for identifying sportsmen have differed from survey to survey. In both the 1955 and 1960 surveys, a responsible household member provided the information as part of the CPS interview. In 1965, each interviewee indicated whether he fished or hunted and provided information on his own activities. In 1970, a short questionnaire covering a number of outdoor recreational activities was left with each family contacted to complete and mail in. Part of the questionnaire concerned the extent of fishing and hunting participation for each household member.
From the questionnaire, households were divided into four classes of participation (one class of non-participants and three levels of participation), depending on the highest use level among the household members. Household members identified as fishermen or hunters (or both) on this screening questionnaire were revisited and interviewed in greater detail concerning their fishing and hunting participation. The sub-sampling rates differed from each of the three levels of participation, with one third of the households in the lowest level revisited, 70 percent of the households in the next highest level, and all of the households in the highest levels.
The detailed interviewing for the 1970 survey was conducted during the first part of February 1971. Altogether over 8 700 sportsmen were interviewed, of whom 5 200 had fished only, 600 had hunted only and 2 900 had both fished and hunted.
The surveys indicate that during the period 1955 to 1970 the number of freshwater fishermen in the U.S. has increased 60 percent, with approximately 40 percent of the increase being noted during the 1965–70 interim (Table 1). Likewise, the number of saltwater anglers increased significantly over this 15 year period but in a more progressively steady fashion. However, the total number of fishermen in the population has remained relatively stable during this same period at approximately 20 percent.
Table 1
Comparison of Certain Major Fisheries' Findings in U.S. National Surveys - 1955, 1960, 1965 and 1970
| Year | %Anglers in Population | Number Anglersa | Days/Angler | Annual Expendituresb U.S.$ | ||
| Fresh | Salt | Fresh | Salt | |||
| 1955 | 17.6 | 18.4 | 4.6 | 18.4 | 12.9 | 101 |
| 1960 | 19.3 | 21.7 | 6.3 | 17.8 | 12.8 | 103 |
| 1965 | 20.0 | 24.0 | 8.3 | 17.8 | 11.5 | 93 |
| 1970 | 21.4 | 29.4 | 9.5 | 20.2 | 12.0 | 142 |
a In millions
b Per fishermen - Expenditure figures reduced to 1957 constant dollars
In some resource areas, as the total number of participants increase, their annual rate of participation decreases. This is normally interpreted to mean that as the harvestable surplus is being spread over an increasing number of users, the quality of the experience is deterioriating. When this occurs, a management decision usually is made either to limit participation and stabilize quality, or to satisfy “demands” for the experience at a reduced quality level. During the period 1955–70, while the estimated numbers of angler days increased from 397 million to 706 million (+78 percent), the annual trips per angler stayed relatively constant; the policy implication being that (nationwide) we have not reached the breakover point between “supply” and “demand” and the average angler still views his fishing trips as “quality” experiences.
In the first three surveys, the average annual expenditure per angler remained at approximately U.S.$ 100 (1957 constant dollars). In 1970, expenditures increased to U.S.$ 140 per year. A review of the Bureau of the Census information for the period 1955–70 indicated no such drastic rise in per caput personal consumption expenditures. This leads one to believe that the large increase in expenditures on fishing trips was indicative of an abnormal rise in recreation expenditures, or possibly a sampling error.
The 1975 survey is to be conducted in two successive increments commencing in January 1976. The initial increment will be a telephone survey of 100 000 households throughout the country. In this survey the incidence of hunting, fishing and other associated wildlife recreational activities will be established. The follow-up increment will be a mail survey of approximately 50 000 individual hunters and fishermen over the age of eight who were identified in the telephone survey. From this survey, detailed information on participation, expenditures and preferences will be derived.
The telephone survey is to be a multi-stage probability sample with oversampling of non-metropolitan households, since hunting and fishing are primarily rural-oriented pursuits. Sufficient telephone numbers will be drawn for the national sample to provide 100 000 completed household interviews, an average of 2 000 per State. Within each of the 50 States, all telephone exchanges known to contain private residents will be arrayed and a probability sample of exchanges taken. Exchanges in non-metropolitan counties of metropolitan States, where the incidence of active sportsmen is likely to be highest, will be sampled at either two or three times their ratio of the population to increase the reliability of user statistics.
Telephone numbers to be dialled will be generated by matching four-digit random numbers with exchanges drawn at random. Only potential numbers which fall into working banks (i.e., all four-digit numbers available for assignment by the telephone company in a given exchange) will be retained in the sample. This will permit inclusion in the sample of households with unlisted and newly assigned telephone numbers.
Sufficient telephone numbers will be generated to yield the designed average of 2 000 completed household interviews in each State. Up to two callbacks, for a total of three calls, will be made to each household to secure an interview. Either the head of the household or other knowledgeable adult member of the family will be asked to respond to the questionnaire.
The mail survey is to be based on a probability sample of hunters and fishermen identified in the telephone survey. Up to 1 000 sportsmen will be mailed questionnaires in each State. If more than 1 000 hunters or fishermen are identified in a State, a sub-sample of each (not to exceed 1 000) will be taken. If less than 1 000 sportsmen are identified in a State, all names will be sent questionnaires. In the States of Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island (where the telephone survey is expected to yield fewer than 1 000 identified sportsmen) the telephone survey may be bolstered by names from State-provided lists of licensed hunters and fishermen, to bring the sample size up to 1 000 individuals.
Two follow-up mailings of questionnaires will be made to each non-responding sportsman (for a total of three mailings) to reduce non-response bias. Of the approximately 50 000 sportsmen contacted, it is anticipated that between 32 500 and 37 500 replies will be received.
It has been the experience of the market analysis firm the Service hired to conduct the survey that while a telephone screen was probably the most facilitative method of sampling large populations, the methodology does have its limitations. Not the least of the limitations is the attention span of those being interviewed - the longer the interview, the less reliable the responses toward the end of the questionnaire. In order to keep the interview under 15 min lapsed time (which is the standard for effective telephone questioning), we were limited in both scope and detail as to the information to be obtained. After identifying whether or not the respondent was a hunter or fisherman, we chose to explore only those associated wildlife resource uses which were of particular concern to us in our legislative and applied management programmes (Table 2). A second limitation in the use of this survey technique is the fact that 12 percent of U.S. residences do not have telephones.
Table 2
Information to be collected in Telephone Screen - 1975 National Survey
| Categories | No. of Participants Identify | Days | Expenses |
| Hunting (Present and Past) | I | - | - |
| Fishing (Present and Past) | I | - | - |
| Viewing - Natural Environment | I | I | H |
| Viewing - Confinement | I | H | - |
| Viewing - Film, TV | I | Frequency H | - |
| Feeding Birds | H | - | H |
| Photographing | I | I | - |
| Archery | I | I | - |
| Target Shooting | I | I | - |
| Plinking | I | I | - |
| Crabbing/Clamming/Collecting Seashells | I | I | - |
I = By Individuals
H = By Households
- = No information collected
The principal items of information being sought in the detailed, self-enumerative mail questionnaire are listed in Table 3. The success of the survey depends quite strongly on the deep interest that most hunters and fishermen have in their sport; it will take that interest to fill out such a questionnaire. The Service recently conducted, through a commercial surveying firm, an attitudinal and motivational survey of the nation's waterfowl hunters. The self-enumerative questionnaire sent to each identified waterfowl hunter was 43 pages in length and the pre-test of some 6 000 duck hunters resulted in a 67 percent return. Analysis of a sub-sample of the total mailing indicated that the use of franked government envelopes in both the outgoing and return mailings would have increased this response rate by at least 8 percent, raising the return estimate to approximately 75 percent. The interest is there!
The original purpose of conducting these surveys was “to provide nationally reliable data as to the importance of hunting and fishing in our national economy”. The 1955 survey statistics provided the first evidence of the importance and scale of hunting and fishing as a national recreation and were used quite effectively by State and Federal fish and wildlife administrators in justifying legislative programmes and budget requests. Over the years, the value of these accumulating national statistics increased as the technicians and administrators grew more adept in their application to other value-oriented problem areas. The national trends are now used by industry and profession alike in developing broad based plans, evaluating biological impacts of extensive developmental procedures and supporting and evaluating national management concepts and programmes. However, with the passage of time, there have been attempts to use these national statistics as a substitute for a lack of localized information. It soon became apparent that these proxies would not stand up under judicial review, the arena where many resource battles are now being fought. The recent flood of environmental protection legislation, both State and Federal, requires that to successfully defend a renewable resource of an environmental amenity against any form of degradation, the data must be as local and as accurate as possible.
Table 3
Items of Information being sought in Self-Ehumerative Questionnaire - 1975 National Survey
| Information Categories | HUNTING | FISHING | |||||||
| Big Game | Small Game | Waterfowl | Other Hunting | Saltwater | Coldwater | Warmwater | Anadromous | ||
| PARTICIPATION | |||||||||
| No. of Participants | |||||||||
| No. of Days Recreation | |||||||||
| Days on Public Lands/Waters | |||||||||
| Days on Fee Hunting or Fishing Areas | |||||||||
| No. Days Rec. out-of-State/in-State | |||||||||
| Licensed/non-licensed | |||||||||
| Category Preference | |||||||||
| Days on Lease/Owned Area | |||||||||
| Days by Weaponry Used | |||||||||
| Days Fishing by Habitat Types | |||||||||
| EXPENDITURES | |||||||||
| Auxiliary Equipment | |||||||||
| H/F Equipment | |||||||||
| Bait/Guides/Access Fees | |||||||||
| Food/Lodging/Travel | |||||||||
| Licences | |||||||||
| Leases/Land Purchase Costs | |||||||||
| USER CHARACTERISTICS | |||||||||
| Sex and Age | |||||||||
| Education | |||||||||
| Occupation | |||||||||
| Total Income | |||||||||
| Residence | |||||||||
| BENEFIT EVALUATION | |||||||||
| Day's Pay Foregone - Value equivalent | |||||||||
| Willingness to pay | |||||||||
| Payment to forego | |||||||||
It was this situation that prompted the change in design and level of data reliability (national to State) in the 1975 National Survey. The added emphasis on non-consumptive use and users was a strategy to increase the support base for the preservation of fish and wildlife resources. The hunter and fisherman too long had been bearing the burden of this fight. Recently, national environmental organizations have entered the picture on the side of the fish and wildlife management agencies, but “hard” evidence of general, popular support was lacking. The 1975 survey hopes to establish the presence of that support and provide structure and dimension to it.
The 1975 survey will attempt to develop as many indices of user-day values as it can judiciously support. Most of the standard approaches to establishing day-use values such as time and distance proxies, expenditure estimates, use fees, and value equivalents (days' pay foregone) are included in the survey. A regimen of questions designed to fix “willingness to pay” which adds dimension to the oft-used intuitive value approach is also a major element of the survey. Hopefully, the survey will supply more accurate national and possibly local benefit evaluation estimates than have been available for use in the past.
Finally, there is a definite need that certain of these national indices be scaled down for use in analysing and projecting “demands” and for establishing needs for hunting and fishing on a more local basis. Given State-level reliability, these statistics could become useful tools in the hands of legislative, budget, and even market analysts. But more important, State resource planners and individual programme managers would find State-level data of inestimable value in their analytical and decision-making processes.
More by way of indicating the applicability of established survey data in forecasting future demands for fishing opportunity than in its actual employment, a regression analysis was made of the 1970 regional per caput angler data. This cross-sectional analysis at one point in time related the percentage of anglers in the total populations of nine census regions to the regional population density and per caput available fishing opportunity. The resulting national estimating relationship, in equation form, was as follows:
Y = 21.5-022X1+15.95X2
where,
Y = percent anglers in population
X1 = population/mi2
X2 = ac fishable waters per caput
The estimating relationship indicates that as population densities increase, the per caput interest in fishing decreases. Conversely, regions which have high per caput fishing opportunity (habitat) also have a greater percentage of resident fishermen. These are expected findings, findings which have been borne out by other studies of this nature. Perhaps what is most significant about the results is the fact that these two independent variables account for 84 percent of the variation (R2) in the per caput participation figure.
With the design phase and the questionnaire development out of the way, present plans call for the telephone survey to begin in January 1976 to be followed by the mail survey in March 1976. Data analysis will continue throughout late winter, summer and early fall of 1976. A report, for popular consumption, covering the national aspects of the survey is scheduled for a December 1976 publication date; while detailed, individual State reports are to be completed by March 1977. The total operational costs of the survey should run slightly over U.S.$ 1 million. This figure does not include approximately 2 man-years of Service supervision and support time. Despite the formidable price tag, the Service and the States are generally convinced that the benefits associated with this survey will more than exceed the costs.
