Watchable Wildlife Conference

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The Public, Wildlife, and Wildlife Viewing
Presented at the2007 Watchable Wildlife
Conference Wednesday, October 3, 2007 Mark Damian
Duda Responsive Management
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Topics

• Trends
• Latent Demand for Wildlife Viewing
• Wildlife Viewing Satisfaction
• Attitudes of Wildlife Viewers Toward Hunting
• Public Attitudes Toward Natural Resources and
  Environmental Issues
• Public Perceptions of Wildlife Issues
• The Importance of Wildlife
• Attitudes Toward Unethical Wildlife Viewing and
  Feeding Wildlife
• Funding
• Credibility
• Sources of Information
• Reasons for Residential Wildlife Viewing
• Reasons for Nonresidential Wildlife Viewing
• Birding
• Participation in Nongame-Related Outdoor
  Activities
• Developing Effective Information, Education, and
  Outreach Programs

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Focus of Fish and Wildlife Management
Fish and Wildlife Populations
Fish and Wildlife Professionals
Fish and Wildlife Habitats
Human Populations
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A simple summary of what our research uncovered
on the customer attribute is this the excellent
companies really are close to their customers.
Thats it. Other companies talk about it the
excellent companies do it.-Tom Peters and
Robert Waterman
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Trends
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2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and
Wildlife-Related Recreation
Preliminary Findings Hunting 2001 2006 4
2001 13.0 million 2006 12.5 million
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2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and
Wildlife-Related Recreation

• Preliminary Findings
• Big Game Hunting 2001 2006 2
• Small Game Hunting 2001 2006 12
• Migratory Bird Hunting 2001 2006 22

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2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and
Wildlife-Related Recreation
Preliminary Findings Fishing 2001 2006 2001
34.1 million 2006 29.9 million
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2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and
Wildlife-Related Recreation
Preliminary Findings Wildlife Viewing 2001
2006 2001 66.1 million 2006 77.1 million
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Latent Demand for Wildlife Viewing
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Wildlife Viewing MarketsWildlife Viewer
Definitions
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Wildlife Viewer Definitions

• Birder
• Birdwatcher
• Wildlife Viewer
• Wildlife Watcher
• Primary Residential Wildlife Viewer
• Primary Nonresidential Wildlife Viewer
• Secondary Residential Wildlife Viewer
• Secondary Nonresidential Wildlife Viewer
• Ability to Identify a Specified Number of Birds

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Wildlife Viewing Satisfaction
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Attitudes of Wildlife Viewers Toward Hunting
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Attitudes Toward Hunting,Measured by the
Following QuestionIn general, do you approve or
disapprove of hunting?(Asked of U.S. residents,
18 years of age or older)

• Residential wildlife viewers are significantly
  more likely to approve of hunting.
• Wildlife viewing trip takers are not more likely
  to approve/disapprove of hunting.
• Birdwatchers are not more likely to
  approve/disapprove of hunting.

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Public Attitudes Toward Natural Resources and
Environmental Issues
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Public Perceptions of Wildlife Issues
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Ecological Values Are More Important Than
Recreational Values

• Top Priorities
• Water Resources
• Law Enforcement
• Endangered Species
• Education
• Habitat Protection

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Ranking of Importance of Each of the Following

• (ranked from highest to lowest mean rating
  of importance on a scale of 0 to 10 with 10 being
  the most important)
• Conserving fish and wildlife habitat
• Enforcing fish and game laws
• Providing opportunities for hunting safety
  education
• Providing opportunities for boating safety
  education
• Protecting threatened and endangered species
• Providing educational programs on states
  fish/wildlife
• Protecting residents against diseases from wild
  animals
• Managing wildlife populations
• Restoring native fish and wildlife species to
  state
• Managing fish populations overall
• Providing opportunities for general public to
  view wildlife
• Providing opportunities for recreational fishing
• Protecting residents from harm from wildlife
• Providing opportunities for legal hunting

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The Importance of Wildlife
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Attitudes Toward Unethical Wildlife Viewing and
Feeding Wildlife
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Funding
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Would you support or oppose more TPW funding to

• Provide additional access to outdoor recreation
  opportunities?
• Preserve more historic sites?
• Enhance efforts for managing and conserving fish
  and wildlife populations?
• Buy additional land for conservation of natural
  resources and outdoor recreation use?
• Residential wildlife viewers, wildlife
  viewing trip takers, and birdwatchers are all
  significantly higher in their support for funding
  for these efforts.

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Credibility
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Sources of Information
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Reasons for Residential Wildlife Viewing
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Reasons forNonresidential Wildlife Viewing
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Birding
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Participation inNongame-RelatedOutdoor
Activities
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Developing Effective Information, Education, and
Outreach Programs
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Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs
Dont Work

• Appropriate and adequate financial and personnel
  resources are not allocated to efforts. Many
  programs and efforts are woefully underfunded
  from the start.
• Biologists, other agency scientists and even
  administrators are not directly involved in
  setting outreach priorities and goals. Buy-in is
  not secured from the rest of the organization
  before the effort is undertaken, and the
  initiative becomes isolated. Effective outreach
  programs need to be developed from the inside
  out as well as from the outside in.

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Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs
Dont Work

• Specific outreach goals and program objectives
  are not specified or committed to writing.
• Target audiences are not identified programs
  attempt to educate the general public.
  Programs attempt to be all things to all people.
• Target audience knowledge levels, opinions, and
  attitudes toward the specific outreach topic are
  not adequately researched programs begin with
  little scientific understanding of the target
  audience.

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Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs
Dont Work

• Messages are not carefully identified and
  crafted. Messages are not field-tested on the
  target audience.
• There are too many messages and these messages
  tend to be too complex.
• Appropriate media are not selected with the
  specific target audience in mind.
• There is too much emphasis on program outputs as
  opposed to program outcomes.

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Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs
Dont Work

• Efforts and initiatives are not implemented long
  enough. Efforts need time to work, and sometimes
  personnel get bored of the implementation phase
  and of repeating the same message over and over.
  There is too much emphasis on product and program
  development and not enough on implementation.
• Efforts are not evaluated quantitatively in terms
  of outcomes and specified goals and objectives.