Balancing Waterfowl Hunting Opportunity and Quality to Recruit, Retain, and Reactivate

Waterfowl hunter numbers and waterfowl populations were closely correlated until the past 2 decades when hunter numbers declined despite near-record breeding population estimates for ducks in North America. As a result, efforts to recruit, retain, and reactivate (R3) waterfowl hunters have been promoted by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan community because hunters are a key source of funding for wetland-wildlife habitat conservation and management. Increasing access and opportunity for hunting appears to be the primary R3 strategy in North America. We suggest that hunt quality is an equal, if not more important, facet of waterfowl hunter R3 that is substantially overlooked and undervalued by current R3 initiatives. We contend that providing abundant access and opportunity to hunt waterfowl alone, especially if it jeopardizes hunting quality, is inadequate. We urge the R3 community to integrate principles and methods used within the human dimensions field to focus on the relationships between quality, motivation, and satisfaction across various audiences and market segments. Such an approach will help R3 initiatives establish an empirical evidence base to develop strategies specifically focused on identifying key hunt quality or opportunity factors.