Colorado State Researchers Find Colorado Hunters Favor Expenditures Of License Revenues On Nonhunting Programs
Monday, May 11, 1998
FORT COLLINS--Colorado hunters are willing to support
non-hunting wildlife programs with a portion of their license
dollars, according to results of a recent survey conducted by
Colorado State University.
The survey asked participants to indicate what percentage of
their license fees should go to support hunting and to each of
three additional programs: fishing, wildlife viewing and programs
that protect endangered, threatened and other wildlife species
that are not hunted or fished.
For each dollar of hunting license revenue, hunters would
spend about 45 cents to manage hunting, 29 cents to manage
fishing, 15 cents on protection of threatened, endangered and
other wildlife not hunted and 11 cents to manage wildlife
viewing.
The study was carried out to help the Colorado Division of
Wildlife determine hunters' support for programs that do not
directly involve hunting. Hunting license dollars, which provide
a large proportion of the Division of Wildlife's budget, give
partial support to the other revenue-poor division programs:
fishing, and wildlife protection and viewing.
"Throughout the 20th century, dollars from hunters and
anglers have provided the bulk of the resources necessary for
agencies to manage wildlife in North America," said Mike
Manfredo, researcher for the study and professor and interim head
of Colorado State's natural resource recreation and tourism
department.
"These findings suggest that, consistent with that
tradition, today's hunters have a strong commitment to the
general good of wildlife and to the broader public's enjoyment of
these resources," Manfredo said.
"Our approach to the use of funds has been to serve the
broad needs of wildlife and people," said Jim Lipscomb,
terrestrial wildlife manager for the Division of Wildlife. "It is
reassuring to see that hunters support that approach to use of
their licenses fees. Although the study was not intended to
provide specific direction to budget allocations, it was
interesting to note the similarity between last year's
expenditures and hunter preferences determined in this study."
While activities overlapped - some 80 percent of hunters
fish, for example, and 54 percent are wildlife viewers - when it
came to spending fees, hunters formed discrete groups.
"Additional analysis helped us identify four separate
segments of the group of resident hunters we surveyed," said
Peter Fix, a graduate research assistant who worked on the
project.
"Of the two largest groups of hunters (about 38 percent
each), one group would divide its money equally between the four
wildlife programs and the other group would spend most of its
funds on hunting and fishing.
"A third group of 17 percent would devote most of the funds
to hunting, while the fourth group, comprising 8 percent of
respondents, would place a strong emphasis on protecting
threatened and endangered wildlife," Fix said.
"The Division of Wildlife often hears comments from special
interest groups that represent one extreme or another on a
particular issue such as program funding," Manfredo said.
"Studies such as this are helpful because they provide
information that is representative of all hunters in the state
and that information can be weighed against other comments that
are received."
The telephone survey, conducted in January, contacted 405
resident hunters and had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5
percent.
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