Fishing Down 12% in Five Years

I just saw this Newsweek story about the latest trends in fishing and hunting. To put it in a nutshell, a five year U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study just reported a sharp decline in the number of Americans participating in fishing and hunting. Interestingly enough, this doesn’t mean that people aren’t spending time in the outdoors (“wildlife watching” is up eight percent). It seems that people are simply choosing to look at animals without killing them a lot more.

MadMegan/Creative Commons

The bottom line? Check out the ending of the piece: “The real lesson of the report is that as a nation we’re gradually finding new, less violent ways to interact with nature. If this keeps up it won’t be long before Elmer Fudd goes after Bugs Bunny with a pair of binoculars.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.