Preserving Missouri’s Outdoor Recreation Heritage
Facing our challenges:
A lack of time, knowledge and access to outdoor areas reduces some Missourians’ ability to enjoy fishing, hunting, exploring streams, hiking, birdwatching or other outdoor pursuits. Outdoor activities are popular and create strong personal connections to nature that increase our understanding and support for conservation efforts.
Missourians who hunt, trap and fish provide an essential service in controlling some populations of fish and wildlife. In addition, conservation recreation annually contributes $3.4 billion to the state economy, supports nearly 30,000 jobs and generates almost $79 million of state sales taxes.
Passionate outdoor enthusiasts created the Department of Conservation in 1936, and a following generation, recognizing that conservation requires a long-term commitment, voted for the conservation sales tax in 1976. Current Missourians must continue passing along outdoor traditions to guarantee the future of our outdoor recreation heritage.
Goal: The Conservation Department will make it easier for Missourians to experience an increased quality of life by participating in fish-, forest- and wildlife-related recreation.
Results we want to achieve:
- More Missourians participating in fish-, forest- and wildlife-related recreation.
- Hunting, fishing and trapping valued as important recreational activities and population management tools.
- Increased benefits of outdoor recreation to Missouri’s economy.
What we will do:
- Increase fishing opportunities close to home by providing management assistance, hatchery production and additional public access on streams, rivers, ponds and lakes.
- Renovate Missouri’s oldest managed wetlands by 2015, including Duck Creek, Schell-Osage, Fountain Grove, Montrose and Ted Shanks, to provide quality hunting and wildlife watching opportunities.
- Support hunters’ ability to manage populations like white-tailed deer through easy-to-understand regulations and easy-to-use permits.
- Ensure a sufficient quantity and quality of trout fishing opportunities by renovating Department trout hatcheries by 2014 and acquiring public access to 10 additional miles of coldwater streams.
- Develop a new Missouri Outdoor Families program by 2008 to provide families across the state with opportunities to experience nature and develop broad-based outdoor skills.
- Encourage and mentor new hunters and anglers through youth hunting seasons, kids fishing days, free fishing days, youth hunt workshops, beginning trapping clinics and other special events.
- Increase opportunities for diverse outdoor activities using emerging technologies, such as GPS, to draw Missourians outdoors to learn about natural landscapes and conservation management activities.
- Develop five new shooting range facilities by 2012 in partnership with communities, colleges and other organizations.
What Missourians tell us
Most Missourians (93 percent) are interested in Missouri’s fish, forests and wildlife.
Thirty-six percent of Missourians say they fish, and 27 percent say they hunt.
Many Missouri households have one or more participants who watch birds and wildlife (72 percent), garden (66 percent), feed birds and wildlife at home (64 percent), use conservation areas (62 percent) and observe wildflowers (61 percent).
Almost all Missourians polled (87 percent) said, “I wish I had more time to enjoy nature,” and 68 percent “strongly agree” that they enjoy observing wildlife.
Eighty percent of Missourians watch programs on television about the outdoors, 75 percent make driving trips to enjoy scenery, and 74 percent read about nature and wildlife.
Fifty-four percent of Missourians hike in the outdoors, 44 percent photograph wildlife, wildflowers or other natural things, 44 percent visit nature centers, and 41 percent camp.
