Mentorship of waterfowl hunters in the Central Flyway

Abstract Due to the steady decline of waterfowl hunters, several studies have investigated means to bolster the waterfowl hunter population. Documented declines in waterfowl hunter participation are particularly worrisome because funding for the conservation of North American waterfowl habitat is dependent on the annual purchase of Federal Migratory Bird Hunting Conservation Stamps by migratory bird hunters. One method of recruiting new waterfowl hunters is through mentoring by existing members of the hunter population. These mentors serve an important role in the propagation of waterfowl hunting participation and the continued funding of waterfowl conservation. Given the importance of mentors to hunter participation, we sought to discover at what age hunters were most likely to mentor new individuals. Using data from a survey of Central Flyway waterfowl hunters, we found that during the time of the survey, individuals between the ages of 20 and 50 years had a ~0.50 probability of taking someone waterfowl hunting who had never gone before. Hunters in their sixties, seventies, and eighties had a 0.20, 0.24, and 0.18, respectively, probability of mentoring a new hunter. If increasing the waterfowl hunter population remains a goal for wildlife agencies, recruitment programming may wish to consider the promotion of mentoring activity by existing hunters well before the age of 60 years.