Are US hunters becoming an endangered species?

Hunting has become a curiosity rather than a necessity for many people, says Mike Busch. When he tells people that for more than a decade he's only eaten meat from animals he's hunted, the New Jersey resident is peppered with questions from people who think that his chosen diet is "cool" and from those who wonder what he has against supermarkets. "It was a whole different world when I grew up hunting," Busch tells the BBC. The 52-year-old activist has hunted for more than four decades. "There was a whole lot of camaraderie among hunters. A lot more people ate what they killed." There is a demographic time bomb facing the US hunting industry as older hunters quit the sport at a faster rate than younger ones can replace them. It's a problem that is decades in the making and presents challenges for US wildlife conservation, which is funded by licence sales and taxes on hunting gear. According to a recent analysis of US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) data by OutdoorLife, a magazine geared toward hunters, participation in the sport peaked in 1982 at 17 million. There are roughly 15 million American hunters this year, according to the USFWS.Michigan Technical University Professor Richelle L Winkler says that men born between 1955 and 1964 participate in hunting at higher rates compared with succeeding generations. Neither younger men - nor the growing numbers of women taking up hunting - are doing so at a fast enough pace to offset the declines in the older demographic. "I don't see this as something that can be reversed," Winkler says. Growing urbanisation is also an issue. According to the Pew Research Center, urban areas where hunting tends to be less popular have grown at a rate of 13% since 2000, while half of US rural counties, where the sport is favoured, have fewer residents than they did in 2000. As a result, fewer people are growing up as hunters and aren't passing down the tradition to their children...MORE