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NORC at the University Chicago

National Participation Tracker for Fishing, Hunting & Wildlife Watching

Father and young son enjoying a day by the river, learning, fishing, and creating meaningful memories together.
New insights to complement the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife Watching
  • Client
    U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
  • Dates
    March – December 2026

Problem

Without current participation data, it’s difficult to plan outdoor programming and conservation efforts.

Outdoor recreation—including fishing, hunting, wildlife watching, boating, and more—contributes billions of dollars to local economies and pays for conservation through license fees and excise taxes. When participation slips, so does the revenue that maintains natural habitats and public lands.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies needed updated data between cycles of its flagship National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, which is conducted every five years. Without current estimates, state agencies and industry partners have little basis for deciding where to direct programming, outreach, and conservation dollars. 

Solution

NORC created the National Participation Tracker to estimate how many Americans fish, hunt, and watch wildlife, and how often.

The National Participation Tracker is a national survey of outdoor recreation, estimating participation in fishing, hunting, wildlife watching, and other activities. It also goes beyond overall participation, asking how often people get to engage in these activities, who they go with, what draws them out, and what gets in the way.

We designed the sample around NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak® panel, using advanced statistical modeling to incorporate large nonprobability samples. We corrected for selection bias by applying TrueNorth®, a calibration approach developed in-house, and the combined sample was then raked to Current Population Survey benchmarks on age, sex, race and ethnicity, education, urbanicity, and geographic region to align with the demographic profile of U.S. adults.

NORC fielded the survey online and by phone in English and Spanish, producing nearly 39,000 completed interviews with an overall margin of error of ±0.8 percentage points.

Result

A new dataset fills the gap between the national survey conducted every five years and current outdoor recreation figures.

The National Participation Tracker found that 50.4 million Americans ages 6 and older went fishing in 2025, including 8.4 million first-time anglers. Across activities, participation was driven by a desire to spend time outside and connect socially. Cost and time constraints remain the steepest barriers. These findings pinpoint where agencies can welcome new participants and intervene to keep existing ones engaged. 

We will deliver a national report and a public-use dataset, along with one-page fact sheets, a recorded webinar, and a video summarizing key findings. Because the tracker carries measures forward from the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, agencies will be able to read the new numbers against the benchmark data source.

Data & Findings

Project Leads

“To help bridge the gap between rounds of the National Survey, NORC fielded a 30,000-interview interim survey aligned with National Survey benchmarks, delivering timely trend data that helps state agencies sustain outdoor recreation and advance evidence-based policy for the public interest.”

Dan Malato

Senior Research Director

“To help bridge the gap between rounds of the National Survey, NORC fielded a 30,000-interview interim survey aligned with National Survey benchmarks, delivering timely trend data that helps state agencies sustain outdoor recreation and advance evidence-based policy for the public interest.”

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