A joint statement from conservation, hunting and shooting sports leaders

The future of hunting, trapping and recreational shooting depends on more than participation alone. It also depends on the broad public understanding of the role hunters and shooters play in conservation, wildlife management and outdoor heritage.

That is why Recruitment, Retention and Reactivation (R3) and public-facing education should be viewed as complementary strategies. They are closely connected parts of the same conservation challenge. Public support helps protect the social and political acceptance of hunting and shooting sports. R3 helps ensure there are still hunters, shooters and conservation participants to carry that heritage forward.

At its core, R3 is not simply about producing more license buyers. The recruitment, retention and reactivation of hunters and shooters is central to sustaining the social and cultural foundation of conservation. That work includes welcoming new participants, keeping current hunters and shooters engaged, reactivating those who have lapsed, improving customer experiences, strengthening mentoring systems, reducing barriers to participation and helping the broader public understand the role hunters and shooters play in wildlife conservation.

That is the work of the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports. The Council's mission is not narrowly limited to increasing participation numbers. It includes promoting the growth of hunting and the shooting sports and educating the public on the contributions hunters and shooters make to wildlife conservation. In other words, the Council's R3 efforts address a concern shared across the conservation community. Hunting's future depends on both participation and support from the non-hunting community.

This work also readily meshes with what many partners are trying to address. State wildlife councils, conservation organizations, fish and wildlife agencies, industry partners and national groups all have a role to play in helping the public understand the value of legal, regulated hunting, trapping and recreational shooting. These efforts are strongest when they are aligned, coordinated and mutually reinforcing.

Recent discussions about public support for hunting have raised important questions about the role of public education campaigns. Those conversations are valuable. Public opinion matters. Ballot initiatives matter. Legislative debates matter. The non-hunting public's perception of legal, regulated hunting and angling will continue to influence the future of wildlife management in America.

Successful public relations efforts on complex issues rarely depend on one organization or one strategy. They are built through partnerships. Wildlife councils, state agencies, nonprofit organizations, industry leaders and national partners each bring different tools to the table. The Council is the lead organization in many efforts to advance hunting and shooting sports, and its R3 work is designed to integrate with partner programs, not compete with them.

The claim that R3 does not effectively move the needle deserves careful discussion. Hunter participation has declined as a share of the U.S. population over several decades. Many hunter education graduates do not become long-term hunters. Demographic, cultural and recreational trends present serious headwinds. None of that proves R3 is ineffective. It proves that R3 is necessary, challenging and still evolving.

Recent license data provides evidence that R3 efforts are helping maintain participation. The Council's work with Southwick Associates found that hunting license sales in 2023 declined by just 0.3% across 47 reporting states compared with 2022. More than half of those states reported an increase in license sales, and more than 80% saw changes of 5% or less. That is not a sweeping victory, but neither is it evidence of collapse. It is evidence of a field working against powerful social and demographic forces to stabilize participation.

The COVID-era participation bump also demonstrated something important. When access, time, motivation and relevance align, Americans still respond to hunting and outdoor recreation. In 2020, hunting license sales increased by nearly 5% across reporting states. The lesson is not that R3 failed when participation later softened. The lesson is that behavior is shaped by opportunity, access, mentorship, family schedules, cultural relevance, technology, licensing systems and agency capacity. Those are precisely the kinds of issues modern R3 efforts are built to understand and improve.

A state can run the best public awareness campaign in the country, but if fewer people hunt, fewer people buy licenses, fewer families pass on outdoor traditions and fewer citizens have direct relationships with wildlife management, the conservation model still weakens. Public approval without participation is politically useful, but it is not sufficient. The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation has always relied on both broad public trust and active user investment.

It is also worth remembering that R3 is not limited to "adult-onset" hunters or one-time mentoring events. The modern R3 movement has matured well beyond that. Through the National R3 Practitioner's Guide, the R3 Community, the R3 Clearinghouse, research reports, training, state coordination and practitioner support, the Council has helped professionalize a field that once relied too heavily on scattered programs and good intentions. The focus today is increasingly on measurable outcomes, customer pathways, retention strategies, targeted communications, license data, mentorship quality and agencywide culture change.

That distinction matters. A well-designed R3 event can produce valuable long-term returns. A disconnected hunter education pipeline may lose participants within two years. A complicated licensing system may push away a motivated beginner. But those are not arguments against R3. They are opportunities for better R3.

Public opinion work faces the same standard. A campaign can be effective, but only if it is research-based, sustained, adequately funded and measured honestly. The same should be expected of R3. These parallel approaches need to work together and simultaneously. The answer is to build a conservation communications system in which participation strategy and public support strategy reinforce each other.

The future of hunting will not be secured by hunters talking only to hunters. The vast majority of Americans do not hunt, but they matter deeply to hunting's future. They vote, serve on commissions, influence schools, shape media narratives and help decide whether hunting is viewed as a legitimate conservation tool or a relic of another time.

But the future of hunting also will not be secured by speaking to nonhunters while neglecting the people willing to participate, buy licenses, mentor newcomers, take hunter education, join conservation organizations and put conservation funding into the system year after year. The small percentage of Americans who hunt carries a disproportionate share of the financial and cultural responsibility for wildlife conservation.

The real danger is not that agencies and organizations are spending too much attention on R3. The danger is allowing public support and participation to be treated as competing priorities. They are not. They are two sides of the same challenge.

Nationwide hunter and shooter decline and decreasing public support mean that we all have a challenging and complex issue on our hands. All members of the conservation community must work together to develop consistent messages for nonhunters and continue to adapt R3 efforts to bring in a greater number of new participants, retain current shooters and hunters, and re-engage with those who have lapsed. R3 is the organized response, developed over decades, that can turn the tide on the decline. Public opinion campaigns may help protect hunting's social acceptance, but without R3 assisting to ensure there are still hunters, shooters and conservation participants to carry that heritage forward, wildlife and wildlife conservation ultimately lose.

Signatories

Ben Mulligan
Chair, Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Chuck Sykes
Executive Director, Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Tony A. Schoonen
Chief Executive Officer, Boone and Crockett Club

Ronald J. Regan Executive Director, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Dan Forster
Vice President & Chief Conservation Officer, Archery Trade Association
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Nick Wiley
Executive Director, Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Becky Humphries
Chair, Michigan Natural Resources Commission
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Kurt Dyroff
Co-Chief Executive Officer, National Wild Turkey Federation
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Tony Wasley
President/CEO, Wildlife Management Institute
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Nick Pinizzotto
Chief Executive Officer, National Deer Association
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Sara Parker Pauley
Retired Director, Missouri Department of Conservation
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Mark S. Tisa, Ph.D., MBA
Retired Director, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

John E. Frampton
Retired Executive Director, Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club

Taylor Schmitz
Director, Federal Relations, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation
Professional Member, Boone and Crockett Club