Those responsible for managing environmental resources, like big game, have often posed questions regarding how best to manage and allocate the resource to “provide benefits to people.” One approach to obtaining information for answering these questions is based on consumer behavior concepts and research. Our consumer-oriented approach to deriving management information for environmental resources, particularly game and other recreational resources, rests on ideas conceptualized by Wagar (1966) and having their theoretical base in psychology’s expectancy-value theory (Lawler 1973). The general theoretical orientation we follow is described in Driver and Brown (1975). We also acknowledge a debt to the multiple satisfactions approach to game management articulated by Hendee (1974). The management orientation of this paper suggests that managers should produce opportunities for game-related recreation which recognize the multiple dimensions of the experience. It is the experience that is the important product of recreation, and quality experiences are a function of how well the consumer’s desired satisfactions are fulfilled. Within this orientation, this paper reports characteristics of the Colorado deer hunter population in terms of the kinds of satisfaction that make up deer hunting experiences. In doing so, the usefulness of cluster analytic techniques for social research in wildlife management is illustrated. The information and analytical techniques discussed in this paper have implications for resource valuation, resource allocation, user management, and related aspects of wildlife planning and management
