1. The Public, Wildlife, and Wildlife Viewing Presented at the 2007 Watchable Wildlife Conference Wednesday, October 3, 2007 Mark Damian Duda Responsive Management

2. 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

4. Fish and Wildlife Populations Focus of Fish and Wildlife Management Fish and Wildlife Professionals Fish and Wildlife HabitatsHuman Populations

5. A simple summary of what our research uncovered on the customer attribute is this: the excellent companies really are close to their customers. That’s it. Other companies talk about it; the excellent companies do it. -Tom Peters and Robert Waterman

6. Trends

8. 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Related Recreation Preliminary Findings Hunting 2001 – 2006 4% 2001: 13.0 million 2006: 12.5 million

9. 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%

11. 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Related Recreation Preliminary Findings Fishing 2001 – 2006 2001: 34.1 million 2006: 29.9 million

12. 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Related Recreation Preliminary Findings Wildlife Viewing 2001 – 2006 2001: 66.1 million 2006: 77.1 million

15. Latent Demand for Wildlife Viewing

18. Wildlife Viewing Markets: Wildlife Viewer Definitions

19. 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

20. Wildlife Viewing Satisfaction

22. Attitudes of Wildlife Viewers Toward Hunting

24. Attitudes Toward Hunting, Measured by the Following Question In 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.

25. Public Attitudes Toward Natural Resources and Environmental Issues

31. Public Perceptions of Wildlife Issues

34. Ecological Values Are More Important Than Recreational Values Top Priorities: Water Resources Law Enforcement Endangered Species Education Habitat Protection

35. 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 state’s 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

39. The Importance of Wildlife

45. Attitudes Toward Unethical Wildlife Viewing and Feeding Wildlife

52. Funding

56. 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.

57. Credibility

61. Sources of Information

64. Reasons for Residential Wildlife Viewing

66. Reasons for Nonresidential Wildlife Viewing

71. Birding

74. Participation in Nongame-Related Outdoor Activities

76. Developing Effective Information, Education, and Outreach Programs

77. Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs Don’t 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.”

78. Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs Don’t 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.

79. Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs Don’t 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.

80. Why Some Outreach and Public Relations Programs Don’t 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.