Public Access for Pheasant Hunters: Understanding an Emerging Need

Ring‐necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus; i.e., pheasant) hunting participation is declining across North America, reflecting a larger downward trend in American hunting participation and threatening benefits to grassland conservation and rural economies. To stabilize and expand the pheasant hunting population, we must first identify factors that influence pheasant hunter participation. We used an extensive in‐person hunter survey to test the hypothesis that hunter demographics interact with social‐ecological traits of hunting locations to affect hunter decisions, outcomes, and perceptions. We built a series of Bayesian mixed effects models to parse variation in demographics, perceptions, and hunt outcomes of pheasant hunters interviewed at public access hunting sites across 3 regions in Nebraska, USA, that varied in pheasant abundance and proximity to urban population centers. Among pheasant hunters in Nebraska, access to private lands was negatively related to the human population density of a pheasant hunter’s home ZIP code and the distance a hunter had traveled to reach a hunting location. Pheasant hunters interviewed closer to metropolitan areas tended to be more urban and travel shorter distances, and their parties were more likely to include youth but less likely to include dogs. Hunter satisfaction was positively associated with seeing and harvesting pheasants and hunting with youth. Whereas youth participation and the number of pheasants seen varied by study region, hunter satisfaction did not differ across regions, suggesting that hunters may calibrate their expectations and build their parties based on where they plan to hunt. The variation in hunter demographics across hunting locations and disconnects between social and ecological correlates of hunter satisfaction suggests that diverse pheasant hunting constituencies will be best served by diverse pheasant hunting opportunities

Hunters and Their Perceptions of Public Access: A View from Afield

Declining hunter participation threatens cultural traditions and public support for conservation, warranting examination of the forces behind the downward trajectory. Access to lands for hunting, an often-cited reason for non participation, may play a critical role in the retention and recruitment of hunters. Meeting the access needs of a diverse hunting constituency requires understanding how hunters use and perceive access opportunities, particularly public-access sites. Given that perceptions of access are entirely place based and degrade with time, traditional postseason survey methods may fail to adequately quantify the value of public access to the hunting constituency. To overcome the potential limitations of postseason surveys, we conducted on-site assessments of hunter perceptions of habitat quality, game abundance, ease of access, and crowding as well as whether the experience met the hunters’ expectations and their likelihood to return to hunt. Over 3 y, we interviewed 3,248 parties of which 71.5% were hunting. Most parties (65.9%) reported having no private access within the region of Nebraska where they were interviewed. Parties (67.6%) were largely limited to two or fewer hunters, most of whom were adult males (84.3%) who were, on average, 41.2 y old. The perception of public-access sites was generally positive, but 43.1% of parties indicated that game abundance was below average despite 59.2% of parties seeing game and 37.3% harvesting at least one animal. Similar to other explorations of hunter satisfaction, we found game abundance, and in particular harvest success, had the most consistent relationship with hunter perception of public access. By surveying multiple types of hunters across sites that encompass a range of social and ecological conditions, we gained a broader understanding of how hunters perceive public access in real time, which will help to inform future management decisions to foster and improve public-access programs

Translating statistical species-habitat models to interactive decision support tools

Understanding species-habitat relationships is vital to successful conservation, but the tools used to communicate species-habitat relationships are often poorly suited to the information needs of conservation practitioners. Here we present a novel method for translating a statistical species-habitat model, a regression analysis relating ring-necked pheasant abundance to landcover, into an interactive online tool. The Pheasant Habitat Simulator combines the analytical power of the R programming environment with the user-friendly Shiny web interface to create an online platform in which wildlife professionals can explore the effects of variation in local landcover on relative pheasant habitat suitability within spatial scales relevant to individual wildlife managers. Our tool allows users to virtually manipulate the landcover composition of a simulated space to explore how changes in landcover may affect pheasant relative habitat suitability, and guides users through the economic tradeoffs of landscape changes. We offer suggestions for development of similar interactive applications and demonstrate their potential as innovative science delivery tools for diverse professional and public audience

Species Distributions Models in Wildlife Planning: Agricultural Policy and Wildlife Management in the Great Plains

We know economic and social policy has implications for ecosystems at large, but the consequences for a given geographic area or specific wildlife population are more difficult to conceptualize and communicate. Species distribution models, which extrapolate species-habitat relationships across ecological scales, are capable of predicting population changes in distribution and abundance in response to management and policy, and thus, are an ideal means for facilitating proactive management within a larger policy framework. To illustrate the capabilities of species distribution modeling in scenario planning for wildlife populations, we projected an existing distribution model for ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) onto a series of alternative future landscape scenarios for Nebraska, USA. Based on our scenarios, we qualitatively and quantitatively estimated the effects of agricultural policy decisions on pheasant populations across Nebraska, in specific management regions, and at wildlife management areas

Hunters and Their Perceptions of Public Access: A View from Afield

Declining hunter participation threatens cultural traditions and public support for conservation, warranting examination of the forces behind the downward trajectory. Access to lands for hunting, an often-cited reason for non participation, may play a critical role in the retention and recruitment of hunters. Meeting the access needs of a diverse hunting constituency requires understanding how hunters use and perceive access opportunities, particularly public-access sites. Given that perceptions of access are entirely place based and degrade with time, traditional postseason survey methods may fail to adequately quantify the value of public access to the hunting constituency. To overcome the potential limitations of postseason surveys, we conducted on-site assessments of hunter perceptions of habitat quality, game abundance, ease of access, and crowding as well as whether the experience met the hunters’ expectations and their likelihood to return to hunt. Over 3 y, we interviewed 3,248 parties of which 71.5% were hunting. Most parties (65.9%) reported having no private access within the region of Nebraska where they were interviewed. Parties (67.6%) were largely limited to two or fewer hunters, most of whom were adult males (84.3%) who were, on average, 41.2 y old. The perception of public-access sites was generally positive, but 43.1% of parties indicated that game abundance was below average despite 59.2% of parties seeing game and 37.3% harvesting at least one animal. Similar to other explorations of hunter satisfaction, we found game abundance, and in particular harvest success, had the most consistent relationship with hunter perception of public access. By surveying multiple types of hunters across sites that encompass a range of social and ecological conditions, we gained a broader understanding of how hunters perceive public access in real time, which will help to inform future management decisions to foster and improve public-access programs

Translating statistical species-habitat models to interactive decision support tools

Understanding species-habitat relationships is vital to successful conservation, but the tools used to communicate species-habitat relationships are often poorly suited to the information needs of conservation practitioners. Here we present a novel method for translating a statistical species-habitat model, a regression analysis relating ring-necked pheasant abundance to landcover, into an interactive online tool. The Pheasant Habitat Simulator combines the analytical power of the R programming environment with the user-friendly Shiny web interface to create an online platform in which wildlife professionals can explore the effects of variation in local landcover on relative pheasant habitat suitability within spatial scales relevant to individual wildlife managers. Our tool allows users to virtually manipulate the landcover composition of a simulated space to explore how changes in landcover may affect pheasant relative habitat suitability, and guides users through the economic tradeoffs of landscape changes. We offer suggestions for development of similar interactive applications and demonstrate their potential as innovative science delivery tools for diverse professional and public audience

Data from: Hunters and their perceptions of public access: a view from afield

The data were collected between 2014 and 2017 and represent interviews of public lands users as they exited the location where they were recreating. Because the data represents human subjects, the data is presented as an aggregate of the original data to protect the participants. Data were aggregated at the party level and specific information about participants removed, as such the analyses represented in the manuscript may not always be represented by this data file as some analyses were conducted at the individual level, not party level, and/or included additional information that was not included here due to concerns over violating human subjects research norms. All analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25. All data were collected under the approval of the University of Nebraska Institutional Review Board, approval 20120912892EX. For further information about the data or analysis please contact the lead author. Descriptions of the variables included in the data along with the survey questions used to populate the associated variable can be found in the ReadMe file

About tab.

<p>The "About" tab directs the user to the published source of the pheasant distribution model and to the websites of the developers and cooperating agencies.</p

Pheasant Habitat Simulator workflow.

<p>The strength of the shiny environment is that it reactively submits the user’s land use change decisions to the analytical procedure. The analytical procedure runs in the background to render both predictions and graphical outputs without reloading the page, creating a seamless data exploration experience.</p

Custom management tab.

<p>The "Custom Management" tab prompts users to select a Nebraska county of management interest. The slider widgets default to reflect the average landcover of a township in that county, and the reactive plots update as the slider bars are manipulated to show landcover and predicted relative pheasant habitat suitability.</p