The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is Incomplete
The Take home Message
- The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is a description of conservation in the United States that leans heavily into the importance of hunters and anglers in conservation in North America.
- Hunters and anglers pour huge amounts of money into wildlife management and conservation via hunting and fishing permits and excise taxes on sporting equipment, but most probably overestimate the relative importance of these dollars in conservation.
- Hunters and anglers are vitally important to conservation in the United States, but the North American Model is a misleading description of North American conservation that minimizes the input of non-sportspeople, as well as the parts of the conservation community that are funded through other mechanisms.
The full story
The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is a philosophical description of how some wildlife biologists view the conservation system in the United States and, to a lesser degree, Canada. Descriptions of the North American Model abound, so I won’t go into great detail here, but I’ve listed the seven core principles of the North American Model in a box to the right. In reality, when you hear someone mention the North American Model, it is almost always in the context of hunting.
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THE SEVEN SISTERS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN MODEL
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Specifically, the North American Model is usually interpreted and presented to mean that hunting and fishing pay the conservation bills in North America. If you hunt or fish, I will bet a large sum of money that you’ve heard this argument. However, as a broad generalization, I guarantee that many proponents of the North American Model (and probably you) are far overestimating the relative contribution of hunters and anglers in conservation funding.
Nonsense you say. What about the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on hunting and fishing licenses each year? How about the hundreds of millions paid in excise taxes on the purchases of guns and ammunition? And what about Duck Stamps…they’re worth hundreds of millions for conservation. These numbers are all completely true. Undisputable in fact.
But can you even guess how much is spent on conservation from sources other than hunters and anglers? The numbers are staggering and dwarf hunting- and fishing-derived conservation dollars. The US Department of Agriculture spends about $5 billion on conservation each year as directed by the Farm Bill. National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service have budgets of well over a billion dollars each. The research that management agencies rely on to make conservation and management decisions totals hundreds of millions each year and is often funded by federal agencies. These things are all part of the federal budget and have no connection to hunting and fishing. Likewise, part of your state’s wildlife management agency is funded by state taxes (to be fair, it’s a small part in most states). Non-governmental organizations like the Nature Conservancy have budgets that rival or exceed the conservation dollars associated with hunting and fishing. Even private landowners collectively contribute a sizable amount to conservation.
I’ve spent considerable time trying to get real, verified dollar amounts for all the different conservation-related funding streams. I’ll present those numbers in detail elsewhere, but as a rough approximation, I would guess hunters and anglers fund somewhere less than 25% of conservation and management related programs in the United States. It certainly isn’t a majority.
If you thought hunters and anglers paid a majority of the conservation bills in the United States, you aren’t alone. Probably most hunters and anglers would agree with you. So how can such a misconception become common knowledge? In large part, it’s because most proponents of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation fail to mention that it is simply one description of one small part of the North American conservation system. Mentions of the North American Model as truth are ubiquitous in popular hunting and fishing magazines and on their websites. Hunting and fishing TV shows bring it up all the time, even if not by name. Hunting-interest groups love the North American Model and promote it widely. Even state management agencies advocate loudly and often for the North American Model.
If you hunt or fish, these are the sources where you probably get most of your information about conservation in the United States. Not coincidentally, these sources have easily identifiable reasons to promote the North American Model. Hunting-interest groups, hunting magazines, and hunting show hosts love the North American Model because it serves as scientific legitimization for hunting. State agencies are the one part of the conservation system in the United States that is largely funded by hunters and anglers, so it’s in their best interest to promote the importance of hunting and fishing because it directly affects their budgets. The North American Model is a public relations dream for proponents of hunting and fishing.
I think most hunters and anglers might also be surprised to learn how the North American Model is viewed in the wider conservation community. I’ve never done or seen a survey on this topic, so I can only speak from personal experience. There are a notable number of proponents of the North American Model in the conservation community. The North American Model is not a fringe idea. There are even scientific societies, like The Wildlife Society, that strongly promote the North American Model. However, for the most part, I would venture that most conservation biologists that don’t work on game animals or aren’t part of The Wildlife Society have never even heard of the North American Model or only vaguely know it exists. I don’t ever remember learning about it in college, and I have three ecology degrees and took about 10 years of ecology and conservation biology classes. I only mention it briefly in classes I teach. Likewise, I asked a close friend that teaches upper-level conservation biology classes, and he doesn’t even mention it in his classes. An informal survey of the colleagues who don’t work on game animals led to responses like: “oh, is that the one about hunting or something” and “no idea, but I’m guessing it’s about conservation in North America”.
Nonsense you say. What about the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on hunting and fishing licenses each year? How about the hundreds of millions paid in excise taxes on the purchases of guns and ammunition? And what about Duck Stamps…they’re worth hundreds of millions for conservation. These numbers are all completely true. Undisputable in fact.
But can you even guess how much is spent on conservation from sources other than hunters and anglers? The numbers are staggering and dwarf hunting- and fishing-derived conservation dollars. The US Department of Agriculture spends about $5 billion on conservation each year as directed by the Farm Bill. National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service have budgets of well over a billion dollars each. The research that management agencies rely on to make conservation and management decisions totals hundreds of millions each year and is often funded by federal agencies. These things are all part of the federal budget and have no connection to hunting and fishing. Likewise, part of your state’s wildlife management agency is funded by state taxes (to be fair, it’s a small part in most states). Non-governmental organizations like the Nature Conservancy have budgets that rival or exceed the conservation dollars associated with hunting and fishing. Even private landowners collectively contribute a sizable amount to conservation.
I’ve spent considerable time trying to get real, verified dollar amounts for all the different conservation-related funding streams. I’ll present those numbers in detail elsewhere, but as a rough approximation, I would guess hunters and anglers fund somewhere less than 25% of conservation and management related programs in the United States. It certainly isn’t a majority.
If you thought hunters and anglers paid a majority of the conservation bills in the United States, you aren’t alone. Probably most hunters and anglers would agree with you. So how can such a misconception become common knowledge? In large part, it’s because most proponents of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation fail to mention that it is simply one description of one small part of the North American conservation system. Mentions of the North American Model as truth are ubiquitous in popular hunting and fishing magazines and on their websites. Hunting and fishing TV shows bring it up all the time, even if not by name. Hunting-interest groups love the North American Model and promote it widely. Even state management agencies advocate loudly and often for the North American Model.
If you hunt or fish, these are the sources where you probably get most of your information about conservation in the United States. Not coincidentally, these sources have easily identifiable reasons to promote the North American Model. Hunting-interest groups, hunting magazines, and hunting show hosts love the North American Model because it serves as scientific legitimization for hunting. State agencies are the one part of the conservation system in the United States that is largely funded by hunters and anglers, so it’s in their best interest to promote the importance of hunting and fishing because it directly affects their budgets. The North American Model is a public relations dream for proponents of hunting and fishing.
I think most hunters and anglers might also be surprised to learn how the North American Model is viewed in the wider conservation community. I’ve never done or seen a survey on this topic, so I can only speak from personal experience. There are a notable number of proponents of the North American Model in the conservation community. The North American Model is not a fringe idea. There are even scientific societies, like The Wildlife Society, that strongly promote the North American Model. However, for the most part, I would venture that most conservation biologists that don’t work on game animals or aren’t part of The Wildlife Society have never even heard of the North American Model or only vaguely know it exists. I don’t ever remember learning about it in college, and I have three ecology degrees and took about 10 years of ecology and conservation biology classes. I only mention it briefly in classes I teach. Likewise, I asked a close friend that teaches upper-level conservation biology classes, and he doesn’t even mention it in his classes. An informal survey of the colleagues who don’t work on game animals led to responses like: “oh, is that the one about hunting or something” and “no idea, but I’m guessing it’s about conservation in North America”.
Hunters and anglers are a vital part of the conservation community in the United States. However, it is important to recognize that the community is much larger the state agencies and interest groups with which hunters most often interact. Funding for conservation comes from a wide range of sources, not just hunters and anglers.
None of this is to say the dollars paid by hunters and anglers aren’t important. The opposite is true: hunting and fishing dollars are vital to conservation in the United States. My point is the conservation community in the United States is far larger and more complex than propaganda on the North American Model would lead you to believe. The conservation community stretches far beyond the influence of hunters and anglers (and their money). A proponent of the North American Model might argue that I’m taking overly simplistic view of what the Model actually states. On paper, they might be correct, because the North American Model does mention conservation ideals not related to hunting. However, in practice, the North American Model is inextricably linked to hunting.
As an ecologist and conservation biologist, I view the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation as an almost comically misleading description of the conservation community in the United States. In my opinion, a more accurate name would be something like “the Sportspeople-pay Model of Game Management”. By focusing so heavily on the role of hunters and anglers in conservation, proponents of the North American Model trivialize the important contributions of other members of the public and others working on conservation with no support from hunting and fishing dollars. Pointing this out does not trivialize the contributions of hunters and anglers, it simply puts them in context.
As an ecologist and conservation biologist, I view the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation as an almost comically misleading description of the conservation community in the United States. In my opinion, a more accurate name would be something like “the Sportspeople-pay Model of Game Management”. By focusing so heavily on the role of hunters and anglers in conservation, proponents of the North American Model trivialize the important contributions of other members of the public and others working on conservation with no support from hunting and fishing dollars. Pointing this out does not trivialize the contributions of hunters and anglers, it simply puts them in context.