TODAY’S FEATURE

What Are We Worth?This morning in Washington a coalition of key outdoor figures will be revealing the results of the latest Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation summary of the financial influence of hunting and fishing on the United States economy. The session will also roll out Candidates on Demand, a collaborative effort between the CSF and VERSUS television where the various presidential candidates will comment on issues that are key to hunters and anglers. We can see their answers streamed from the VERSUS website.

Personally, I’m getting a little tired of being portrayed as the “shrinking community of Amercan hunters and anglers” or the “increasingly smaller” number of anglers. Point of fact, the thirty million American anglers represent a very significant portion of the American economy.

‘$378,000,000 please - to go’

For example, a quick question from the survey: Guess what American anglers spent $1.1 billion on last year?
Not equipment ($5.3 billion).
Not food ($4.3 billion).
Not lodging ($2 billion).
Anglers spent $1.1 billion (that’s 1,100,000,000) on -bait. Yep bait.
Anglers spend $378 million dollars on ice.

In other words, we represent some revenues that don’t always get their “props” in the everyday marketplace.

The sportfishing industy supports more than 1 million jobs - the US Postal Service supports 803,000.

More Americans go fishing every year than visit the world’s number one resort destination - Disney World. When you outrank Disney in that category, you’re a player.

Without fishing, boating would be missing eleven billion dollars of income - and hurting. More than a quarter of all fishing costs, in fact, are boat-related (at this point, it’s appropriate to recall that “hole in the water where you pour all your money” comment from a neighbor and laugh- ruefully).

In other words, anglers are not a minority, or disenfranchised group of wackos - we are a vital piece of the fabric of this nation. And despite the protestations of more radical elements of our society (PETA’s Fish Empathy Project pops to mind), we are not unpopular with the American public. Ninety five percent of Americans support legal fishing - only three percent think fishing should be eliminated. The poll being released today shows clearly the positive attitudes toward hunting and fishing.

Many Americans probably wouldn’t be able to state it very clearly, but they realize anglers and hunters serve multiple needs - sustenance, recreation and conservation. Having been a part of the fabric of this nation since before the United States even was a nation - so deeply ingrains you in the psyche of the nation that you are, most often, taken for granted rather than appreciated for your contributions.

It’s also fitting and proper to remind politicians that anglers and hunters as a bloc represent nearly a third of the total voting population of the United States. And we are one of the groups that turns out to vote - sometimes even on a single topic that impacts our recreational interests.

The point? We should realize that anglers are an invaluable and important piece of American society. To allow fringe groups to portray us otherwise is a disservice to the conservation movement of the United States - and patently dishonest.

–Jim Shepherd