The Economics of Hunting

There's a reason a group such as the Sierra Club, perceived as a "liberal bunch of tree-huggers" by most, would have a hunting and fishing page on their website. It's because most mainstream environmental organizations -- among them Sierra, The Audubon Society and the Izaak Walton League -- recognize hunters and anglers were the first conservationists, advocating the preservation of wilderness and wildlife long before there was something called the "environmental movement." Moreover, most mainstream environmentalists understand wildlife conservation in this country would collapse without the support of hunters and anglers.

In 1937 a group of concerned sportsmen -- among them former president Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, George Bird Grinnel and J.N. Darling -- managed to push through congress a measure called Federal Aid In Wildlife Restoration, also known as the Pittman-Robertson Act. This measure established a set of excise taxes on firearms, ammunition and archery supplies with the moneys to be used exclusively for wildlife conservation. That's right: for one of the few times in this nation's history a special interest group actually advocated a tax against themselves.

Pittman-Robertson has been quite successful: 68 million acres of wildlife habitat has been purchased and over 350 million acres of wildlife habitat is maintained and operated by this tax on hunters. Since 1937 about $5.3 billion has been raised, with another $1.3 billion in state's matching funds. In 1950 congress passed the Dingell-Johnson Act, which established a similar excise tax on fishing products. Thanks to several amendments passed in the ensuing years (including the Wallop-Breaux Amendment of 1985 and an extension signed by George W. Bush in 2005) anglers have donated another $5.4 billion since 1950. Together, hunters and anglers have contributed almost $11 billion for wildlife conservation since the late '30's through these excise taxes.

And that doesn't include the millions of dollars contributed each year through license fees, special use fees and stamps, including the wildly successful duck stamp program. The National Refuge System, partly funded through the duck stamp, now totals some 95 million acres -- 11 million more than in the National Park System. Because of hunters and anglers dozens of species -- both game species and non-game animals -- have recovered or are recovering. Among them are wild turkeys, white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope, wood ducks, desert bighorn sheep and many predatory birds including bald eagles and peregrine falcons. Anti-hunters are fond of pointing out that hunters preserve wildlife habitat so they may have more prey to shoot, yet fail to understand that the pelican and the red-tailed hawk don't know the preserved marsh in which they live was saved by hunters to help ducks.

The original conservationists do quite a good job in the general economy also. According to the Fish and Wildlife's National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Associated Recreation, 13 million hunters and 34 million anglers spend almost $58 billion per year to hunt and fish. Entire industries thrive on the money sportsmen pump into the economy, and many small towns in rural America would simply dry up and blow away without the economic might of the nation's hunters and anglers.

Simply put: hunters and anglers are an economic force both for wildlife conservation and in the general economy. Fringe groups who would advocate the abolition of either hunting or fishing would do great harm to our shared wildlife and our economy were they to be successful.

Next: The Politics of Hunting