By Thomas Word 

In recent years, the number of game hunters in the United States has begun to decline, despite America’s rich history of outdoor activities. 

In the U.S, there are multiple variations of hunting that tend to vary based on location and interest. These include turkey hunting, deer hunting, and waterfowl hunting. According to The National Deer Association, deer hunters make up 79% of the hunting population of the U.S., but overall, the percentage of Americans who are hunters is on the decline.

One type of hunting that has been particularly impacted by this is upland game hunting. Upland game hunting is when hunters target species such as pheasant, grouse, or quail with the help of a bird dog. What is unique about upland game hunting is the importance of the bird dog. The job of the bird dog is to use their extremely strong sense of smell to track down birds. When the dog locates a bird, it will point to it. This gives the hunter a chance to walk up to the dog, flush the bird, and hopefully harvest it. Training and hunting with bird dogs has been a tradition in my family for generations.

One of my family’s bird dogs pointing a bird in the grasslands of Montana. Photo credit: Jim Heckert.

The dog is no doubt the most pivotal aspect when it comes to upland game hunting. The most common breeds used for this style of hunting include English Pointers, German Shorthaired Pointers, English Setters, English Springer Spaniels, Brittanys, and Vizslas. Most of these dog breeds were created specifically for the purpose of upland game hunting and have been used for this purpose for generations. My family owns and trains English Setters due to their natural strong sense of smell, inherent cleverness, and loyal demeanor. There are also different styles a hunter can choose to hunt their dog. Some hunters prefer their dog to stay close and hunt in a pattern around them, while others prefer to allow their dog to cover a larger portion of space and make their own hunting pattern. This is often preference-based, but it can also depend on the habitat and species the hunter is targeting.

In 1996, there were over 6.9 million upland game hunters, and in 2016, that number was down to 3.5 million. With almost half the upland game hunters leaving the sport, this has left the community in a precarious position.

There are many factors to the decline of upland game hunting, but it is important to examine why all manners of hunting are experiencing a decline in popularity.

A major reason for the decline is largely to do with the youth of America not being as interested in hunting. The survival of hunting is unquestionably reliant on young people, because they are responsible for carrying on the information and passion of the sport to the next generation. This lack of interest is a crucial reason why hunting is at risk.

Another major reason why hunting is becoming so much less popular in America is because of urbanization. Human populations are expanding into areas that were once wilderness, destroying habitat that was once used by the animals hunters target. 

Sharp-tailed grouse. Photo credit: Alan Schmierer via Wikimedia Commons.

This is an especially pressing issue for upland game birds. One example of this is the sharp-tailed grouse. This bird lives in the prairies of the United States, and its population has begun to suffer due to the spread of human development. At one point in history, there were over 16 million sharp-tailed grouse in the US, and now that number sits at only around 500,000. Unfortunately, sharp-tailed grouse only are not the only game bird that continues to suffer from population loss.

My father Scott Word (‘79) is a hunter who has been targeting upland game bird species in Virginia his whole life. When he was young, the prevalence of upland game birds such as quail and ruffed grouse was much higher. He tells me stories about how he used to take his dogs to farms in Cumberland and Powhatan Counties and find quail quite regularly. Today, wild quail in Virginia are incredibly scarce and very difficult to hunt. This is due, in part, to the lack of habitat that used to be more prevalent. In my father’s words, “farmers now like to ‘clean cut’ their fields; they use a bush hog to cut their fields short all the way to the woods.” Back when he was hunting, farmers used to leave an unmanaged gap between the edge of the field and the woods, which provided a much needed habitat for the quail. Farmers do not like to leave this space because they want to maximize their crop yield. 

Another species that my dad used to hunt in Virginia is the ruffed grouse, often called “the king” of upland game birds. The birds’ illusive and finicky nature often makes them difficult to find. These birds used to be very common in the Virginian Appalachian Mountains when my dad was younger. My dad remembers days when they would find “up to twenty grouse in a single day.” He witnessed the decline of these birds first-hand and watched as their presence in the forest disappeared. Today, the birds have almost totally vanished from the Virginian Appalachians. In the words of my father, “nowadays, a hunter would be lucky to find a single grouse after a full day of hunting in the Virginian Appalachians.”

This drastic change in the upland game hunting landscape motivated my father to join the Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS). RGS is a foundation that is dedicated to preserving upland game and in particular, the ruffed grouse. The mission statement of RGS is as follows:

Our vision is to create landscapes of diverse, functioning forest ecosystems that provide homes for wildlife and opportunities for people to experience them.

RGS is just one of many organizations that are dedicated to the conservation of game all across the country. Some of these organizations include Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Pheasants Forever, and Delta Waterfowl. Although each of these organizations focuses on a different species, they each have a common goal—to improve natural habitats and protect hunting as a whole.

Hunters’ efforts to better the environment are often overlooked. Hunters are responsible for providing over 1.8 billion dollars each year to conservation efforts, more than any other demographic in the United States. This is largely due to the Pittman-Robertson Act. Passed in 1937, the act of Congress states that a special tax was to be placed on items such as ammunition and firearms. All the money generated from these taxes is used in conservation efforts across the country.  As the number of hunters decreases, it is likely that the funds generated for wild conservation will decline. 

Another reason upland game birds are suffering is because of policies that promote the prevention of cutting trees. Many of the game birds in the United States thrive in forests that are in early stages of growth. This means that these birds thrive in young, short forests. Unfortunately, there is a massive lack of active forest management, which is when forests are strategically cut to lower the risk of dangerous forest fires and provide habitat for certain organisms. More and more forests are being left to grow old, and natural processes such as forest fires aren’t being allowed to take their course because of the danger they pose to humans. My father has witnessed this happen in the mountains of Virginia. “Many of the areas I used to hunt are no longer actively managed, this has caused the forests to grow old and no longer provide habitat for these birds.”  

Not only does hunting provide significant financial backing to environmental projects, it provides Americans with a way to connect back to nature. As the world modernizes and concrete begins to swallow up nature’s beauty, hunting provides a window into what used to be. In many instances, hunting is a family tradition, and each kid who is a part of it dreams about the day his or her dad will take them on their first hunt. As a fourth generation hunter, I know hunting has brought me closer with my family, and without it, I don’t think I would be the person I am today.