Many organizations within the outdoor industry from state wildlife agencies and conservation groups to manufacturers media and sportsmens clubs have invested substantial time money and effort into…

Many organizations within the outdoor industry from state wildlife agencies and conservation groups to manufacturers media and sportsmens clubs have invested substantial time money and effort into recruiting new retaining current and reactivating lapsed hunters over the past 15 years. This practice has been named R3, which stands for recruit, retain reactivate. R3 has a goal of increasing participating in hunting and IT has been accepted as a key initiative among the aforementioned groups. While the goal of increasing overall participation is common among these groups no research has been done among americas 15 million active hunters to understand their knowledge level and interest in this important initiative. We do not know what percentage of current hunters are for or against having more participants nor do we know how to best communicate with current participants no matter their opinion on the topic. To confirm if there was a need for comprehensive research on this topic the project team conducted an awareness poll exploratory survey in may 2024 and received 240 completed responses from americans that have hunted within the past 12 months. Among the results from this exploratory survey were that only 29 percent of respondents current hunters had a clear understanding of what R3 recruit retain and reactivate is and 10 percent of respondents were opposed to organizations focusing on recruiting more hunters. Full results from the awareness poll are available at the end of the proposal application. The awareness poll results proved to the project team that further in depth research is needed on this topic. This proposal aims to identify for the first time items such as what current hunters know about R3 what their opinions are on increasing hunting participation and what are the best communication tactics to implement no matter their opinion on increasing hunter numbers. The project team has more than thirty years collective experience with this topic and has well rounded representation from state agencies, non-governmental organizations (ngos) and industry.