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On a year-over-year basis, sales of both firearms and ammunition have been up each month for at least the past 10 months, according to the National Shooting Sports Federation. For example, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported 1,074,757 checks in August, a 12.3% increase from the 956,872 reported in August 2008.

In the first quarter of this year, the most recent for which data are available, manufacturers paid $109.8 million in federal Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax, up 43% from the same time period the year prior. A statement from Federal Ammunition says that “demand for our products is at an all-time high. We continue to work seven days a week, making multiple daily shipments to meet the current demand.”

All of which bodes well in the short term for the health and vitality of hunting, a sport that pumps an estimated $23 billion per year into the U.S. economy. Looking at the long term, however, there have been indications for the past several years that hunters as a percentage of the total U.S. population are on the decline, although how sharp a decline is open to debate. NSSF and other stakeholders were concerned enough to convene a task force in 2008 with the goal of increasing hunting participation 20% by 2014, and target shooting by a comparable percentage.

Comprised of 27 member organizations including the NSSF, Task Force 20/20 held a three-day meeting in June of this year to discuss strategies for bringing young people into the sport as well as retaining existing participants and reactivating the ranks of hunters who may have been avid sportsmen but have since laid down their rifles or bows. The best-received ideas generated at that meeting “will serve as a directional template for Task Force 20/20 going forward,” according to the NSSF.

Task Force 20/20’s report, “The Future of Hunting and the Shooting Sports,” says that hunting participation since 1980 peaked in 1982, when nearly 17 million licenses were sold. According to the most recent “National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation” from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 12.5 million Americans ages 16 and older went hunting in 2006. They hunted a total of 220 million days and took 185 million trips, the majority of big game such as deer and elk.

HIGH APPROVAL RATING

Contrary to the beliefs held in some quarters, however, this seeming decline has not been due to a rising tide of anti-hunting sentiment. The sport’s approval ratings have increased over the years, according to the Task Force 20/20 report, going from 73% in 1995 to 78% in 2006. Seventy-nine percent of adult Americans approve of legal recreational shooting.

So then why the decline in hunting participation? Encroaching urbanization over the years has had much to do with it. More than 35% of the U.S. population of 1950 lived in rural areas, but that figure is expected to drop to around 20% in next year’s census.

Urban and suburban sprawl has four negative effects on hunting participation, according to the Task Force 20/20 report. One is that “less rural land and a lower rural population equal fewer people growing up in hunter-friendly environments.” Urbanization contributes to a deterioration of a hunter’s “social network” important for continued participation, the report states. Moreover, urbanization eats away at hunting lands as well as “buffer zones” around new developments, and as a result, “hunters have farther to travel to find hunting lands, creating a constraint and greater cost to participation.” Naturally, that’s an obstacle for participants in outdoor sports of all kinds.

The importance of a social network around hunting participation can’t be underestimated. “Being in a ‘hunting culture’ (such as having family and friends who hunt or shoot or at the very least approve of and support hunting and shooting) is vital in successful recruitment,” the report states. “Experienced shooters help initiate new participants into the shooting sports.” According to a survey by researcher Mark Damian Duda, who contributed to the Task Force 20/20 report, 92% of youth hunters ages 8 to 18 came from hunting families.

Most active hunters were introduced to hunting at a young age, and 58% had hunted at least once by age 12, according to Task Force 20/20. Hunters tend to be ages 18 to 34, and hunt annually with a family member or friends. They also tend to be active in other forms of outdoor recreation, such as camping, fishing or boating.

The report also looked at reasons hunters are laying down their arms. Having less free time was cited by 40% of ex-hunters surveyed, with the top five reasons rounded out by family obligations (35%), work obligations (34%), loss of interest (33%) and not enough access to hunting (17%). The costs associated with hunting were pretty far down the list, suggesting that many former hunters would continue to hunt regardless of out-of-pocket expenses.