Some good news: Interest in hunting fading [View All]

[arissa]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-the-fading-hunt,0,7832682,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Studies: Interest in Hunting Fading




By ANGIE WAGNER
Associated Press Writer

March 10, 2005, 2:19 PM EST

As a teenager, Bryan Dinkins and his grandfather would go out before dawn on many a winter morning to hunt duck. They would quietly discuss school and life while waiting for the birds.

Dinkins, now 40, hasn't been hunting in six years. He's too busy, he says, and anyway it would take six hours to drive somewhere to hunt ducks in California.

It's a common lament in the new century, a time when urbanization and hectic lives can get in the way of hunting traditions. Hunting now is not just about when to go, but where to go? How much will it cost? And, more than ever, who will go?

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Across the country, the number of hunters declined from 14.06 million to 13.03 million, or 7.3 percent, from 1991 to 2001, according to the Census Bureau and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The drop was greater in the West -- 9.6 percent, from 2.46 million to 2.22 million.

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