Getting new people involved in hunting and shooting sports isn't just fun and critical for wildlife conservation, it's also essential to make sure that these activities continue as part of American culture. And that's why there's a national initiative called R3.
R3 is the way through which we get more people involved, more diverse participants, and support for hunting, shooting sports, angling, and boating. R3 stands for Recruitment, Retention, and Reactivation. Those activities allow us to increase participation with new participants, make sure that existing participants continue their engagement, and get folks back once they've lapsed.
Those three R's sound simple enough, but their greater implications impact the foundation of your agency or organization, our population's day-to-day lives, and the future of fish and wildlife management in this country. It doesn't matter if you're a wildlife biologist, a nonprofit employee in a fundraising role, working for a firearms manufacturer on the line, an agency administrator, or in a dedicated R3 position—an understanding of R3 and the efforts going on in your area is crucial.
So there are several trends that R3 is specifically trying to address. The first of these is that, not that long ago, we discovered that generations differ in how they engage with the outdoors. If you look at the actual numbers, the current highest percentage of participants in hunting and shooting sports are typically Caucasian males that belong to the Baby Boomer generation. That generation in and of itself is primarily composed of traditionalists. These are folks that grew up hunting and shooting and had that as part of their family culture. In addition to that, they harvest wildlife as part of their relationship with nature.
This particular population is beginning to age out of outdoor recreation, taking their advocacy, funding, and passion for wild spaces and the activities that they support with them. On the other hand, Millennials and younger generations have a higher percentage of people with a different relationship with nature. They focus more on things like their mental and physical health and well-being, a spiritual connection with nature, or outdoor recreation that has nothing to do with hunting and shooting sports. And this population isn't filling in to hunting and shooting sports behind Baby Boomers as quickly as Baby Boomers are leaving.
So if you're watching this video, you probably work for an organization that has a vested interest in R3. But maybe you're not a dedicated R3 practitioner and you're wondering how your role is impacted by R3. Well, it doesn't matter if you work for a natural resources agency, a nonprofit, or the industry—R3 impacts all of you, and everything that you do impacts R3.
Let's take a look at a few examples. If you work for a state natural resources agency, maybe you're a wildlife technician that manages a local piece of public land. Anytime you do a management action on that land, maybe it's introducing a new access point, you're improving access and that user experience for hunters out there. You are doing R3.
If you're working for a conservation nonprofit as a regional director running around doing banquets around the country and fundraising for conservation, you are the person that interacts directly with all of those volunteers that you can encourage to take new people out, and you're providing that social support network that we know is so crucial. So you are definitely doing R3.
Maybe you're with the industry. You work for a firearms manufacturer. Your employer cuts a check every year that is the excise tax that goes to fund all of these public shooting ranges that are constantly emerging. You are definitely R3 as well.
Maybe you're a member of the general public and you stumbled upon this video and you're thinking, how does R3 impact me? Well, R3 is not just about bringing new people into the activity; it's also about improving the experience for existing hunters and shooters—maybe increasing access or simplifying regulations so they're easier to understand. So R3 impacts you as well.
So now that we've established that R3 impacts all of you, let's take a look at how R3 is constantly evolving. Just over the past few years, these efforts have come a long way. Organizations like the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports and the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation have been working behind the scenes as facilitators of the national movement. We have strategies in place like the National Hunting and Shooting Sports Action Plan. We have exponential growth in R3 dedicated positions, and technology and information is constantly evolving. We've got new data coming out all the time from research that we're doing. We have innovative marketing strategies, emerging best practices, and a lot of new access programs going on as well.
And that just names a few. But you might be asking yourself, with this evolution, is R3 actually making a difference? Are we increasing and diversifying participation? Are we keeping more people engaged?
Well, let's take a look at a few indicators that might provide some insight. Just this past year, we saw an increase in hunting license purchases, with significant increases in purchases by women. We also have data to suggest that there were increases in minority purchases as well, much of that growth driven by younger age groups.
On the shooting sports side of the equation, we saw millions of new gun owners just this past year, with significant increases in purchases by African Americans and women. So I think it's safe to say that R3 is playing a role in this and we're headed in the right direction.
So to successfully implement an R3 effort, you first have to understand how someone adopts and then ultimately self-identifies as a participant in an outdoor recreation activity. Then you can map out all of your efforts and help guide someone down that pathway. This process of adoption is called the Outdoor Recreation Adoption Model, or the ORAM.
To wrap it all up, those three simple R's clearly impact your career, the future of conservation, and the continuation of these activities that we've taken for granted for over a century. The R3 movement and your participation in it will play a large role in the continuation of hunting, shooting sports, fishing, and boating for generations to come.