Continuing the discussion thread...

Peter Sullins
The Sullins Family
In The Village of Silver Firs
Everett, WA
TheSullinsFamily at earthlink.net

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Munts [mailto:mmunts at ifriendly.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 9:33 PM
To: ible at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [IBLE] FW: re: Serious Birders in WA



Harry and others,

These numbers are pretty accurate. They come from a report by the US Fish
and Wildlife Service on wildlife based recreation in the US. Specifically it
is the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated
Recreation. It has been done every 5 years since at least the 1970's. The
numbers and the statistics are pretty good and not only defensible have been
used in the numerous research project and federal programs. As for the term
serious birder I would question the use of it here. The document being
referred to uses the following definition:

" To be counted as a birder, an individual must have either taken a trip a
mile or more from home for the primary purpose of observing birds and/or
closely observed or tried to identify birds around the home."

I for one know a lot of people that have "tried to identify birds around
the home" that I would not consider a "serious birder". But using that
definition the USFWS the surveys finds nationwide 22% of Americans identify
themselves with the above definition of birder. The top 5 states are Montana
44%, Vermont 43%, Wisconsin 41%, Washington 36%, Minnesota 36%. Idaho is at
#14 with 29% self-identifying with the above definition of birder.Some other
interesting stats from this report. in 2001 478000 people birded Idaho. Of
these 60% were Idaho residents while 40% came from outside Idaho (that's
191000 tourists that came to Idaho to watch birds). That's not counting the
million plus that passed through on the way to Wyoming to watch wildlife. At
a mere 33% Wyoming had the lowest percentage of birders that were state
residents than any other state (can you say Yellowstone).

Some other fun stats from this report did you know that wildlife watching in
the US in 2001 had sales of 38.4 billion that's more than Kmart. That year
we spent 3.1 billion on bird feed and 3/4 billion on bird houses. That's
over 1 million jobs nationwide with an economic output of 95.8 billion and
just over 1 million jobs. In Idaho we spent $227,500,000 which resulted 384
million in economic output resulting in 5938 jobs with a payroll of over 100
million. Which resulted in 12.2 million in state tax revenue and 9.3 million
in federal income taxes.

If anyone wants to check out several hundred more pages (the Idaho chapter
alone is 86 pages) of these types of stats just check out:
http://fa.r9.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html

Mike Munts
Arco





>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "J. Harry Krueger" <hkrueger at cableone.net>
> To: "'IBLE'" <ible at yahoogroups.com>; <swiba at yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 1:52 PM
> Subject: [IBLE] FW: re: Serious Birders in WA
>
>
>>
>> Here is a post from the Washington listserv, Tweeters. If there
>> actually
>
>> as
>> many "serious birders" in that state as claimed, that's more people
>> than in ALL of Idaho! I doubt the validity of the figures, but the
>> intent is
> good.
>> Enjoy:
>>
>> Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 20:10:27 -0800
>> From: "Gene Kridler" <kridler at olypen.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] More on birder dollars
>> To: <Joemeche at aol.com>, <fieldnat at pacificcoast.net>
>> Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
>> Message-ID: <002701c4ea37$aac98190$84137118 at DJ3GLR41>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Hi Youse Guys:
>>
>> The Fish and Wildlife Service put out a report about birding in the U.S.
>> based on the scientfic survey in 2001 about the fishing, hunting and
>> wildlife associated recreation. Also a report concerned about such
>> activities in this state.
>>
>> Briefly, it reported that 1,827,000 residents of this state were
>> involved
>
>> in
>> serious birding activities, and their expenditures totaled $979 MILLION.
>> That included all expenditures such as travel, both in and out of the
>> state, food and lodging, equipment etc.. The total of birders was
>> 30.9% of our population. Amazing. Anglers totaled 14.8% and their
>> expenditures constituted $853.8 million. Hunters constituted 3.9% of
>> our population
> and
>> they spent $349.8 million.
>>
>> The various reports have scads of statitics to plow through. In
>> essence they show that birders are not exactly a minority, and they
>> spent more than anglers or hunters. So, birders should show some of
>> their economic clout to the general public and legislators and other
>> governmental officials so as
>
>> to
>> do something for the welfare of this resource which would include
>> saving essential habitat of birds instead of seeing more and more habitat
lost.
>> Money makes the mare go.
>>
>> Ugh, me have spoken, ugh!
>>
>> Broken down old (85) retired USFWS wildlife biologist/administrator
>> Gene Kridler, Squirm-er-Sequim kridler at olypen.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>
>
>




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