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Will Birdwatchers Pay for Conservation?

By Patrick DurkinApril 17, 20153 Comments

While banging on our dining room window to chase a squirrel off a bird-feeder, I reminded myself that I’m actually a generous conservation supporter.

I told myself that again toward dusk the next day while trotting outside to chase away three white-tailed deer before they could slurp all the birdseed from our two tube-feeders. They really have become pests, these small-town deer. To save our birdfeed for birds, we must bring the tube-feeders indoors by late afternoon before the deer indulge their thieving ways.

Even though I was depriving those freeloading deer and squirrels of easy meals, I didn’t pity them or feel selfish. No, I was actually feeling a little smug as a hunter/birdwatcher.

Hunters who also identify themselves as birdwatchers are eight times more likely than non-recreationists to engage in conservation efforts.

Hunters who also identify themselves as birdwatchers are eight times more likely than non-recreationists to engage in conservation efforts.

After all, I had just finished reading about researchers at Cornell University who found that people who identify themselves as both hunters and birdwatchers were eight times more likely than non-nature-based recreationists to engage in wildlife and habitat conservation efforts.

The researchers surveyed rural residents of Upstate New York to see if it’s possible to predict conservation activity based on age, gender, education, political ideology and environmental beliefs. Their survey found the greatest “predictors” of conservation-related activities were whether people were hunters or birdwatchers.

Individually, birdwatchers are about five times more likely, and hunters about four times more likely, to engage in conservation activities than those who don’t participate in nature-based outdoor recreation. Being conservation-minded typically meant they were more likely to advocate for wildlife, improve public lands for wildlife, participate in local environmental groups, and voluntarily donate to local conservation organizations.

The study appears in the current issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management, and will likely interest wildlife-agency professionals who are coping with long-term revenue declines for their budgets. Those budgets keep shrinking because the traditional funding sources for conservation programs – mainly hunters and anglers – have steadily declined in number and as a percentage of the U.S. population.

Birdwatchers are five times more likely than non-recreationists to take part in wildlife- and habitat-conservation efforts.

Birdwatchers are five times more likely than non-recreationists to take part in wildlife- and habitat-conservation efforts.

“Our results provide hope for wildlife agencies, organizations, and citizens concerned about conservation,” Dayer said. “Bird watchers, a group not traditionally thought of as a constituency by many wildlife-management agencies, have real potential to be conservation supporters, if appropriate mechanisms for them to contribute are available.”That last phrase is the key. Even though birdwatchers voluntarily contribute to private conservation programs, they’ve mostly left the nation’s publicly-funded programs to manufacturers of hunting and fishing gear. These companies have long paid federal excise taxes to fuel the nation’s conservation efforts, with the cost theoretically being passed to individual hunters and anglers.

Meanwhile, birdwatchers typically fight proposals for similar FET conservation contributions. I witnessed that reluctance – OK, angry rejection – firsthand 12 years ago when my friend Tom Heberlein formally proposed a recreational tax on wildlife feeding in Wisconsin.

Heberlein wrote what sounded like a fair, level-headed proposal, and presented it in April 2003 to the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, which sets policy for the DNR. The seven-citizen Board listened politely and thanked Heberlein for crafting such a constructive idea, but none of them took further action.

Unfazed, Heberlein pitched it to newspapers through guest editorials, and got himself invited to share it with listeners on Wisconsin Public Radio. I recall tuning in hopefully one morning, and admiring Heberlein’s plan and his voice of reason as he discussed why conservation projects can no longer count on hunters and anglers alone for funding.

And then the host opened the show to listeners. Realize, now, that folks who listen to WPR and call in to its shows usually aren’t the sort who deny climate change, view vaccination programs as government conspiracies, and disrupt hearings with chants, heckling, and shaving-cream pies to someone’s face.

Then again, neither do these folks often hear someone suggest a modest tax on bird- and wildlife feeds. Few asked Heberlein questions. They had no time for niceties. They basically called him a nut, and said he wouldn’t get a dime from them until he pried their cold, dead fingers from their sunflower-seed scoops.

I pictured Heberlein sinking lower and lower in his studio chair, wondering how all these friendly backyard birdwatchers could dive-bomb him like crabby crows on a barred owl. Finally, the hour passed and the show ended. I pictured Heberlein leaving the radio station, hat caved in, spectacles bent askew.

He’s never again been so foolish to publicly call for self-imposed conservation taxes on wild-feeds.

Birdwatchers typically oppose excise taxes on feed, even if it would help publicly funded conservation programs.

Birdwatchers typically oppose excise taxes on feed, even if it would help publicly funded conservation programs.

Perhaps realizing such challenges, the Cornell University press release ended with this charitable thought: “As agencies and conservation organizations ponder how to better work with bird watchers, hunters, and hunter/bird watchers on conservation, one take-home message is clear: The more time we spend in nature, the more likely we are to protect it.”

Maybe so, but just don’t ask anyone to pay for it through a new excise-tax program. Chances are, we’ll need a genuine environmental crisis like another Dust Bowl before we’ll again see social forces unite birdwatchers and bureaucrats to craft taxpayer-driven conservation programs.

But if/when that day comes, the hunter-based Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, and the angler-based Dingell-Johnson Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act will serve as great templates.

 

Patrick Durkin
President at Wisconsin Outdoor Communicators Association
Patrick Durkin is a lifelong bowhunter and full-time freelance outdoor writer/editor who lives in Waupaca, Wisconsin. He has covered hunting, fishing and outdoor issues since 1983. His work appears regularly in national hunting publications, and his weekly outdoors column has appeared regularly in over 20 Wisconsin newspapers since 1984.
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