Sunday, December 11, 2011
By John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Adam Herb, 13, of Evan City, can practically stand within the spread of the 12-point he shot near his home, Dec. 3. A recent nationwide survey found Americans' approval of shooting sports has remained consistent or increased over the past 15 years.

As Pennsylvania hunters hang their guns on the rack following the 2011 firearms deer season, a new nationwide survey confirms continuing popular support for hunting, target shooting and shooting sports in general.

The survey, released last week, mirrors previous findings that a large majority of Americans approve of legal hunting and recreational shooting activities. A third of Americans, it said, want to give target or sport shooting a try, and nearly half of respondents had eaten wild-caught meat during the previous year.

The telephone survey covered 50 states. It was commissioned by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and conducted in August and September by Responsive Management, a Virginia-based public opinion research firm specializing in issues regarding natural resources and outdoor recreation. The report was structured with demographic proportions among respondents that matched the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 profile for the general population.

The survey found 74 percent of those polled approve of legal hunting -- 42 percent strongly approve -- reflecting similar findings in Responsive Management surveys released in 1995, 2003 and 2006. Those results parallel other surveys gauging Americans' opinions on hunting issues, including 2003 and 2008 Gallup polls on animal rights that found a steady 75 percent of Americans "strongly opposed" or "somewhat opposed" to banning all types of hunting.

"We don't have good comparative data before the 1990s, because people were asking the question in different ways," said Mark Damian Duda, executive director of Responsive Management. "We know from past opinion polls there has been a remarkably stable positive public opinion on hunting, fishing and the shooting sports. We keep finding that in every state -- in [Pennsylvania] I think it's 81 percent in support of hunting."

Seventy-one percent of those polled approve of recreational shooting, with 44 percent strongly approving. About a tenth of Americans hunt, the report says, but a whopping 95 percent said it is, "... OK for other people to hunt if they do so legally and in accordance with hunting laws and regulations."

The most noteworthy part of the survey documents a slight but consistent upward trend in American opinions favoring shooting sports. In 2001, 59 percent indicated shooting sports were "perfectly acceptable." In 2006 the percentage had climbed to 63 percent; this year shooting sports are "perfectly acceptable" to 66 percent. In contrast, the percentage of Americans who said "shooting sports are inappropriate" dropped from 11 percent (2001) to 5 percent (2011).

High statistical support of non-hunters for legal hunting runs contrary to a rash of complaints about defiant trespass by hunters and unsafe hunting practices that has recently surfaced as Pennsylvania debates the legalization of Sunday hunting. But state Rep. Marc Gergely, D-White Oak, a member of the House Game and Fisheries Committee, said the public's perception of hunting has improved as hunters have learned to hunt more safely.

"I think the National Shooting Sports Foundation and National Rifle Association -- and in Pennsylvania, the Game Commission -- have done a very good job of educating the public that hunters and people who legally own guns aren't criminals. We are law abiding citizens," said Gergely.

Public awareness of Hunters Sharing the Harvest, in which hunter-killed venison is donated to food banks, and increased knowledge of the vital role of hunters in wildlife management and as an economic engine, have helped to convince the 90 percent of Americans who don't hunt that hunters are OK, he said.

Hunting expenditures total $22.9 billion annually, according to a 2006 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study.

"The argument used to be, guns are bad, and that impacted their perception of hunters because we have guns," he said. "Now, I think the conversation has shifted to, it's not the hunters and target shooters, not the owners of legal guns that are causing [gun violence] problems. It's the illegal ownership of guns. That's the problem. Everyone wants to find ways to go after them . . . and prosecute them."

Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said the success of the agency's hunter education program and other safety measures, as well as the long legacy of hunting "woven into the fabric of the state," have influenced Pennsylvanians' acceptance of hunting. Begun in 1959 as a voluntary course, the hunter education curriculum had matured by 1982 into a required class for all new hunters. Its impact on safety was felt almost immediately.

"Our hunter education program, coupled with the requirement of [hunters] wearing orange, has drastically decreased hunting-related shooting incidents in the state, and I think the non-hunting public recognizes that," Feaser said. "Back in the '50s and '60s, even into the '80s, we were seeing [as many as] 181 hunting-related shooting incidents in a given hunting year. Last year we had a total of 35."

On Thursday, Feaser said during the two-week statewide firearm deer season there were nine shooting incidents involving hunters -- six were self-inflicted, three were two-party incidents involving hunters, all were accidental discharges.

Read the complete Responsive Management survey at www.responsivemanagement.com.

John Hayes: 412-263-1991 or jhayes@post-gazette.com.

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