The Vanishing Hunter, Part IV
The Role of the Media

The Greatest Story Never Told

Part 1: Hunting Participation Continues Long-Term Retreat Part 2: How the 'King's Deer' Became the 'People's Deer' Part 3: The Human Touch of Wildlife Management Part 4: The Role of the Media Part 5: It's the Culture

By Dan Nelson
Editor

If the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wanted to cripple waterfowl hunting, they couldn’t have devised a more diabolical plot than to do away with the programs that provide most of the continent’s ducks. 

Ironically, the antis didn’t have to sabotage those programs because many are going away on their own, and with barely a whimper from most outdoor communicators or the hunters they represent. 

There will likely be fewer ducks in the flyways this fall, and fewer yet in years to come, but most hunters won’t understand why because these critically important programs have received only passing coverage in much of the outdoor media.

The sale of guns, shells, decoys, calls, boats and mud motors are likely to drop as these programs unravel.  The small-town motels, bars and restaurants that rely heavily on duck hunters will see less traffic. Smaller outfitters will struggle to stay in business.    

Yet with so much at stake, only a handful of outdoor communicators have written or aired stories devoted to these issues.

Foremost among them—call it “the greatest outdoor story never told”—is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a government set-aside that provided enough nesting habitat to produce 2 million bonus ducks every year since 1992, and that’s not counting the ducks that accrued year after year like money in an interest-bearing savings account. 

In the next few years, as millions of acres of undisturbed grass and embedded wetlands across the prairie breeding grounds are replaced by corn, wheat, sunflowers and soybeans, duck populations will achieve lower highs during wet cycles and lower lows when the prairies are dry.  More restrictive seasons will likely be imposed and, if history is any indication, the exodus of duck hunters will accelerate.

Our series on The Vanishing Hunter has examined many of the possible causes for declining hunting participation, from the antis to urbanization to commercialization.  It’s only fair that we turn a critical eye to our own field of endeavor: communications.

If there’s one place the media might be culpable, it would be its failure to keep readers, viewers and listeners apprised of conservation issues that could result in reduced bird numbers.  Experts have long recognized the correlation between the availability of game and hunting participation, and no where is that link more obvious than the world of ducks.  The 27 percent drop in waterfowl participation between 2001 and 2006 almost directly paralleled the post-1990s decline in the mallard breeding population.

Congress might have approved a more wildlife-friendly farm bill  had it received an outpouring of grassroots support for CRP, but most hunters didn’t rally around CRP because only a few communicators bothered to report on it.

As head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Habitat and Population Evaluation Team (HAPET), Ron Reynolds is the country’s foremost authority on CRP’s impact on duck populations, so it would be logical to think his phone was ringing off the hook during the recent farm bill debate.  It wasn’t.  

“I’ve been interviewed on CRP by perhaps a dozen writers over the past year,” Reynolds said shortly after the delayed passage of the 2007 farm bill.  Even if all of them were outdoor writers—which is highly unlikely—that would be a remarkably light response given what’s at stake.

Julie Sibbing of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is one of a handful of go-to media sources among non-government organizations, and she too was disappointed in the lack of attention by the outdoor media.  “They haven’t covered the program very well,” Sibbing says.  “We lost 7 million acres of CRP and there was no outcry from outdoor writers. They’re treating this like it was inevitable.”

Asked if they believed a groundswell of support from hunters might have produced a more positive outcome for CRP, both Reynolds and Sibbing said they did.  “The more people hear about something, the more it sinks in and underscores the importance of the issue,” Reynolds said.  “That’s just human nature.”

“I think sportsmen did a pretty good job of supporting the farm bill initially,” says Sibbing, “but when the debate got to the details and everything started falling apart, we didn’t see any outrage from sportsmen or the media.

“If you’d roamed the halls of Congress during that time, you’d have seen lots of farm interests going from office to office, but very few sportsmen.”

Lacking a vocal grassroots constituency, conservation measures critical to the future of ducks are less likely to be enacted or funded at appropriate levels, and that’s what happened to CRP.   As commodity prices soared, producers who for years have struggled with low prices found farming or cash-renting their land far more lucrative than CRP payments, and many had no choice but to let their CRP contracts expire.

CRP isn’t the only critical issue facing duck hunting.  Others, like the Clean Water Act, sodsaver, swampbuster, the Emergency Wetland Loan Act and funding for national wildlife refuges have been similarly ignored and in some cases even pooh-poohed by a hook-and-bullet press, and that has Sibbing worried.

“I’m afraid they (Congress) are going to take us for granted and think we’re pushovers,” she says of outdoor interests who’ve been no-shows at crucial debates.

Aside from hunters themselves, no one has a more vested interest in maintaining the resources that support game populations than the outdoor media.  Fewer hunters mean fewer readers and viewers, and that translates into reduced advertising revenues. 

Some outdoor communicators say conservation reporting isn’t part of their job description, but award-winning radio and television producer Tony Dean disagrees: “Outdoor communicators have an absolute obligation to tell viewers (and readers) about conservation issues,” says the veteran outdoor communicator from Pierre, South Dakota. “If we don’t do it, who will?”

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Marshall of the New Orleans Times-Picayune agrees.  “Anyone who makes a living from this tradition has a responsibility to leave it a better place,” he says.  “How can you cover the outdoors without writing about conservation issues?” 

But Marshall is quick to defend his profession, saying publishers are simply giving readers what they want.  “Today’s sportsmen want more how-to, what-to and where-to and less conservation,” he says. 

Media critics argue that conservation and how-to/where-to/what-to aren’t mutually exclusive, and wonder why editors and producers can’t sandwich conservation messages between slices of where-to and how-to.  At least a few editors and producers agree.

“We’ve enjoyed great growth while other publications were bleeding subscribers,” says Rob Drieslein, editor of Minnesota Outdoor News.   “As people—hunters and fishers—we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our resources; we hold them dear.  Our readers want to know about conservation issues.”

In the highly competitive world of outdoor television, only the highest-rated shows survive.  Producers who believe conservation programming isn’t fast-paced enough to hold viewers’ attention often air segments featuring nonstop whacking and stacking and no conservation coverage. 

But producers who have taken the road less traveled have found an enthusiastic audience for their message.   Dean and Orion Media’s Chris Dorsey are among a handful of outdoor television producers who’ve discovered that weaving conservation and appreciation isn’t a ratings killer, and in fact has been a productive tactic.

“I’ve done lots of conservation programming on my show, and, if anything, I think it’s helped our ratings,” says Dean.  “One year we had a 2 rating and a 22 share.  I don’t think there’s a show today that can match those numbers.”

 “The genesis of our company was in response to so much bad television,” says Dorsey, whose Orion Media in 2008 had 9 of the 10 top-rated shows airing to Versus’s universe of 74 million households.  “Showcasing authentic hunting and fishing action is crucial, of course, but I think the key is striking a balance to create series that entertain, educate and uplift viewers.”

Another reason outdoor communicators shy away from conservation stories is that they’re often complex and controversial.  “It’s not fun to ask the tough questions of politicians,” Drieslein admits. “We have a lot of outdoor writers in this country, but I’m afraid there aren’t enough outdoor reporters.”

“It isn’t easy,” admits Tori McCormick, Delta’s director of communications and a former newspaper outdoor writer.  “The issues are complicated and require a lot of legwork, but that’s part of the job.”

Surprisingly, wildlife managers don’t necessarily make the job easier.  A journalist is only as good as his or her sources and, wildlife professionals aren’t always the most cooperative sources.   Managers and administrators who work for state agencies often aren’t at liberty to speak frankly with the press because of political considerations.  Speaking in opposition to a program the governor—a.k.a “the boss”—supports does little to enhance a manager’s job security.

Those who are willing to talk often bury their message in a language so esoteric it would take another scientist to interpret it.  Wildlife science is counter-intuitive, and many biologists have learned that speaking candidly on the issues opens them up to criticism from the public, their bosses and, ironically, even from hunters, who give government agencies no credit for the good times and all the blame during the bad.  Tired of being whipping posts for their constituents, these officials often shy away from the media.

Federal employees aren’t allowed to promote conservation issues.  “People have to understand that as a federal employee, I can’t legally lobby on these issues,” says Reynolds, “but if someone asks me a question, I can answer based on the science.  I have to be careful not to over-state the evidence, but I can respond.”

A few wildlife managers are willing to speak with reporters “off the record”, but only if there’s a mutual trust between the writer and the source, and earning a source’s confidence can take years.

Even if a reporter is diligent enough to cobble together the necessary information for a story, finding a market for the piece can be challenging.  Only a handful of outdoor magazines accept conservation stories, and most newspaper editors want features with a “local angle”.   Convincing an editor that a story about the farm bill’s impact on the far-off duck breeding grounds is pertinent for a “local” readership is, as many writers have learned, almost impossible.            

“Most editors don’t make the connection between the number of ducks that arrive each fall and the place that produces those ducks,” says McCormick. “That makes these stories doubly tough for writers to place.”

Yet another problem: Competition for space in newspaper sports sections—where most outdoor pages are found—has grown dramatically.   Thirty years ago only half a dozen major men’s sports demanded regular coverage; today the number of men’s and women’s sports far exceeds the column inches available in the daily sports section.  The sports sections have become so crowded that many events are now printed in the tiny type used for box scores and legals.

“Newspaper editors consider participation levels and reader interest and then cut where they can, and usually, that means the outdoors,” says Marshall.   Just as conservation programs are always the first to get cut by governments, so conservation stories are the first to get axed from newspapers.

All of which takes us back to the original premise that the media is contributing to the demise of hunting.  Not so fast, cautions Marshall.

“Newspapers and magazines do extensive research to find out what their readers want,” he says.  “If readers wanted conservation coverage, it would be there.” 

Did sportsmen turn their backs on conservation issues, or did the media’s failure to report on conservation spawn apathy among hunters?

“The outdoor media has dropped the ball on conservation,” says 88-year-old Michael Frome of Port Washington, Wisconsin, a retired outdoor writer who has lost more than one job by insisting on writing conservation pieces. “If you want to stand up for what’s right, there’s a sometimes a price to be paid.”

“Sportsmen have always been the leaders in the conservation movement, but in the 1970s and ‘80s they turned their backs on it,” says Marshall.

Ultimately—unfortunately—it’s likely that both views are correct.  

Coming in the fall issue: Solutions: How we can restore hunter numbers before it’s too late.