Hunting a brighter future
Why industry and states are trying to bring kids outdoors
When Tim Young watched his son bag his first deer, he knew he was witnessing a monumental moment in the child's life. It took three shots for the young hunter to finally hit his mark, and in those seconds Young watched as the boy's expression ranged from nervous anticipation to devastation to elation. Laughter, tears, shouts of joy — the human experience bottled into a few short minutes.
"The emotion that a kid shows is just incredible and so fun to watch," said Young, who works as a hunting and fishing guide along the Texas coast. "Kids are the only ones who can do that. You're never going to see that kind of emotion just hunting with your buddies or other adults."
According to Families Afield, an education and outreach program lobbying states to remove barriers to youth hunting, only 25 percent of youth from hunting households are active in the sport. Further, during the past quarter-century, the number of hunters has dropped 23 percent.
Many within the industry blame the decline on age restrictions, mandatory prerequisite coursework and certification processes they say keeps parents from being able to share hunting with their kids.
"Youth getting involved in hunting is absolutely critical to the future of the sport," said Tom Hughes, Families Afield coordinator on behalf of the National Wild Turkey Federation. "There is research to support that the younger a child starts, the more likely they are to become a hunter and the more likely they are to continue as an adult.
"If you want a lifelong participant, you have to start early, before other things claim that child's attention."
To that end, Families Afield works with politicians, agency officials, hunters and the general public, trying to change laws they deem restrictive. The cornerstone of the group's philosophy is that parents, not government, should decide when kids are ready to hunt.
"No one is in nearly as secure a position to say when his or her child is mature enough to hunt with a firearm than the parent," Hughes said. "It's an individual decision, and we're confident from what we've seen that parents will make the right choice."
In terms of overall safety, hunting-related shooting incidents have declined by 31 percent over the past 10 years, and research has shown most youth hunter incidents occurred in the absence of an adult.
But beyond safety issues, many youth hunting advocates say the greatest reason for getting children involved is simply to get them outside.
"It's a responsibility for us to instill a sense of connection with the outdoors with our youth because, in today's mechanized and electronic society, there's less and less of that," said Dodd Clifton, marketing coordinator for Realtree Outdoor. "There's a value both emotionally and spiritually, and yet we've removed children from it."
"Hunting teaches kids self-reliance, independence and a love for nature far beyond hunting," added Tom Hughes. "It gets kids back in the woods, and we really need to embrace that philosophy."
Texas has become a proponent of that philosophy over the past decade, exporting its youth hunting initiative, the Texas Youth Hunting Program, to Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
The program's stated mission is to preserve hunting heritage through youth hunts. Over the past 11 years, the state has organized some 1,200 youth hunts, taken about 12,000 kids hunting and exposed 36,000 people to hunting and the outdoors.
"The thing we want them to appreciate most is the value of preserving our wildlife and environment, and that hunting has a role in maintaining healthy populations of wildlife," said Jerry Warden, director of the THYP. "If they harvest something, they need to have a reason for it, not just go hunting because hunting is fun."
The program's progress shows in survey results in which 94 percent of participants considered themselves hunters after they completed the program. Eighty percent went on at least three hunts after participating.
All of this is good news for organizations like Families Afield, which has met with limited success in targeted states.
"If we can't hunt with our kids, we're missing more than sharing a great tradition with our children and grandchildren," said Rob Keck, CEO of NWTF, in a Families Afield statement. "We're missing a chance to cultivate a lifestyle and passion that our country needs more than ever."
That sentiment is echoed by hunters all over the nation, who look forward to hunting season as an opportunity to experience the outdoors as a family. Tim Young doesn't just take his 13-year-old son with him — he brings his 11-year-old daughter and his wife, too.
"It's just an amazing experience to take the kids hunting with you and see them get excited about the littlest of things that we take for granted," said Young.
"It really wakes you up a little bit to see it through their eyes."
For more information or to find youth hunting opportunities near you, visit:
Families Afield - www.FamiliesAfield.org
National Shooting Sports Foundation - www.NSSF.org
National Wild Turkey Federation - www.NWTF.org
U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance - www.USSportsmen.org
Texas Youth Hunting Program - www.TYHP.org
