Fewer Fishermen

Sport fishing isn't as popular as it used to be in the U.S. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service conducts national surveys of fishermen and hunters every five years.  The surveys from 1991 to 2006 have been done in a consistent manner.  Here are the key numbers for total anglers, freshwater anglers (Great Lakes and non-Great Lakes) and saltwater.  All measured in thousands:

Those declining numbers of participants come from an increasing national population.

And here are the corresponding numbers for angler days, again measured in thousands:

The bump up in 2006 is interesting, but fishing days have declined since then.  Camping in national parks also appears to have dropped since about 1995 - and some indices peaked about then  (Where are the Campers?, Ben Muse, October 24, 2007).  The data came from these two survey reports: 2001 and 2006.

Comments

[buy r4ds]

The tragedy of the commons is really–as this example shows–a tragedy of the completely free market. “Profit seeking fishermen should want to catch fewer fish,” as you say, but in our insane free-market system, the profit-seeking fisherman (singular) can’t do so without losing money. Unregulated free markets are destroying the world…