By: Kristin Owens

Tyson Hafen has shot a deer every year since he turned 14 and became old enough to hunt. He learned how to hunt from his father, who learned from his own father, and Tyson, a 22-year-old BYU student, plans to take children of his own out one day.

Families like the Hafens are a big part of how the love of hunting and the skills to do it are passed down through generations, enthusiasts say. But while many Utah families like the Hafens are still dedicated to the sport, a recent survey shows the ranks of both hunters and anglers have been steadily dwindling in recent years.

The number of hunters in Utah reflects a nationwide decline in hunting and fishing. Preliminary results from the most recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey show that the mountain region of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming lost 15 percent of its hunters between 2001 and 2006, the biggest hunting decrease in the country.

This fall about 96,000 people in Utah hunted in the general deer hunt, compared to highs in the 1970s of more than 200,000 deer hunters in a season, according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, which handles hunting permits. Although there are still high numbers of hunters, the number of hunters and anglers are not growing at the same rate as the population.

Fewer hunters may spell trouble for Utah wildlife, some wildlife management officials say. Hunters and anglers provide more than 90 percent of the state's revenue for wildlife management, through permit fees and taxes on hunting equipment.

"If those dollars decrease and there's not some other source of funding coming in, our ability to manage the wildlife suffers," said Mark Hadley, Division of Wildlife Resources spokesman. "That should be a concern to everyone whether you hunt and fish or not."

Experts attribute the dropping number of hunters to both environmental and social factors. Environmentally, the loss of wildlife habitat is contributing to the decline, said National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman Tony Aeschliman. An average of 2.2 million acres of land is developed each year, according to a 2001 report by the National Resources Conservation Service.

In Utah, development on the foothills of the Wasatch front has encroached on wildlife habitat, Hadley said. In addition, some wilderness land has declined in quality in spite of being left undeveloped. One example is the sagebrush deer feed on all winter, which Hadley said is gradually becoming less healthy and less able to provide nutrition to deer.

The unique social character of hunting poses another obstacle. Hunting is an overwhelmingly male sport traditionally passed down in families, Aeschliman said. A majority of hunters are taught by their fathers or other male relatives - it is rare for an adult without such connections to the sport to take it up, he said.

"Certainly one of the biggest factors in the whole equation is the breakdown of the family," Aeschliman said. "The father is traditionally the one who would introduce children to hunting. It's pretty hard for a youngster to get into it by himself without an adult guiding."

Some see the decline in hunting and fishing as evidence of a larger trend. Jason Taylor, director of the Utah Society for Environmental Education, said outdoor recreation in general has suffered a decline in popularity.

"It's indicative of this really large issue, which is that kids aren't playing outside anymore," he said.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources hopes to re-engage youth in hunting and other outdoor activities with events like the Utah Youth Hunting Day. The youth hunt lets children under age 15 hunt waterfowl a week before the season opens to the public, after completing the requirements for a hunting license and while accompanied by a non-hunting adult.

Youth fishing clubs are other programs targeted toward children, Hadley said. The Division of Wildlife Resources helps sponsor springtime fishing classes at community fishing ponds all along the Wasatch Front.

Although the number of people fishing and hunting in Utah is not what it once was, the permits available for the deer hunt continue to sell out, partly because there are fewer permits available today than in the past, Hadley said. The number of permits for sale is calculated based on wildlife population to prevent over-hunting.

In addition to providing much of the funding for wildlife management, hunters themselves serve as an important wildlife management tool, Taylor said. Hunters have taken the place of large carnivores that are now missing in the food chain, he said, and prevent some species from overpopulating.

Some animal rights advocates, however, say that's bad science. If people weren't eliminating predators from the food chain themselves, population control wouldn't be a problem, said Jason Hardy, wildlife coordinator for the Utah Animal Rights Coalition. Furthermore, hunters take the biggest and most viable members of animal populations, as opposed to natural selection's elimination of the weakest.

A major conflict of interest arises when public agencies like the Division of Wildlife Resources are involved in actively recruiting hunters, Hardy said.

"Their policies are directed toward earning income," Hardy said. "We can't be absolutely certain whether their primary goal in recruiting hunters is just an effort to be able to create a larger budget or really is in the best interest of animal populations and the ecosystem."

While animal rights advocates like Hardy consider hunting "wanton violence for pleasure," hunting advocates see the sport as a way of life that provides family members with important bonding experiences and promotes ties with the natural world.

"Most hunters have a connection to nature that a lot of us don't have," said Taylor, who does not hunt himself. "I think someone that goes and shoots an elk and knows where it came from and eats it has less impact [on the environment] than someone who buys a steak at the supermarket and doesn't even know where it came from, doesn't even know it came from an animal anymore."

Tyson Hafen said those who hunt are often more environmentally minded than their non-hunting peers. He expressed a refrain common among hunting enthusiasts - that the hunt is about the total experience more than the end result.

"My dad always says he doesn't necessarily like to kill the animals," Hafen said. "It's more of an excuse to get outdoors."

Copyright Brigham Young University 13 Feb 2008