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04 November 2001 Are You A Birder?
When speaking to the general public, I often ask for a show of hands of those admitting to be birders. Usually the response is a ripple of affirmations rolling through a sea of blank stares. Most would rather confess to gulping goldfish as a college prank. Yet when I follow by asking for a demonstration of those who feed birds in the backyard, the room erupts with more ayes than a capitol full of legislators voting for their own pay raise. "Okay, so let’s see if I’ve got this straight", I ask. "You say you aren’t birders, yet you are feeding birds in your backyard? Do you watch the birds you attract to your feeders? I know it - you thought they looked a little thin, so you decided to fatten them up a bit?" Who is or isn’t a birder is a complex matter. Recently I participated in an U.S. Forest Service nature tourism seminar for Congressionally Designated Areas (CDA). Ken Cordell, who master-minds the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE), presented the most recent trends in outdoor recreation. According to Ken and the NSRE, over 71 million Americans find their way to nature through birds. This is a dramatic increase from the 54 million reported only five years previously. So shouldn’t we be awash in birders and up to our necks in Miss Hathaways (at least figuratively)? Shouldn’t my audiences explode in a singular emotional affirmation of birding when presented with the opportunity to be a part of the fastest growing outdoor recreation trend in America? No such outburst is being heard in birding organizations. The National Audubon Society still hovers around 500,000 members, with little change in their membership during this period of accelerated growth. An almost identical number of people have purchased David Allen Sibley’s new field guide, The Sibley Guide to Birds. Impressive numbers to those who follow such trends, but still puny when compared to the market as a whole. The American Birding Association appears to be even less successful in connecting to the American birder population. ABA numbers only a little over 20,000 in its membership, and that number is stagnant. The ABA, if Ken Cordell is right, represents .03 percent of the American birders. That’s right, less than one percent. To be perfectly fair, we should note that organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club have experienced membership stagnation during the same period. Yet the ABA is committed to serving the needs of a recreation, rather than a philosophy or ideology. ABA is in the business of birding, and we certainly should expect to see growth there at least relative to the expansion of the market, shouldn’t we? So where is the tsunami that should be following this earthquake? To answer this question, let’s revisit the idea of who is or isn’t a birder. Is there a generic birder (returning to the Miss Hathaway stereotype), or is this recreation as segmented as hunting or fishing? Consider fishing. Anglers are a very diverse group. Some are willing to spend $20,000 on a bill fishing trip to Cabo San Lucas, and others are perfectly happy to sit all day on the North Jetty in Galveston with a six-pack of beer and a bucket of bait. There are salt-water, fresh-water, troll, fly, bait, lure, and cane-pole fishermen, each pursuing angling happiness in a distinctive fashion. All fall under the rubric of "angler," yet the individual motivations, expenditures, and degrees of avidity may differ significantly, even dramatically. There are birders that tape, photograph, list, count, draw, paint, and feed birds. There are birders who focus their attention on certain groups of birds such as hawks or hummingbirds. There are those who chase birds in the most remote corners of this planet (Mongolia, Gobi desert, the Tibetan plateau). And there are those who are content to laze in a lawn chair in the backyard and occasionally glance at the House Finches on the feeder. There are "virtual" birders who keep lists of birds seen or heard while watching television. Perhaps these are all part of Ken Cordell’s 71 million American birders, but I will argue that being surveyed is all they have in common. All, that is, except for finding a window to nature through birds. Birding is made up of a complex matrix of interests, specialties, and levels of commitment and skill only framed by an interest in birds. To measure the success of an organization such as the ABA in garnering market share, we first must know the relative size of their potential market (their sliver of the birding pie). Although the number of birders who might be attracted to an organization catering to self-named birders is unknown, certainly this segment is far smaller than the 71 million reported by the NSRE. The ABA and the National Audubon Society may be more successful than their membership numbers might indicate, but for one disturbing trend. Neither organization has grown during the period that the entire birding population expanded by nearly 20 million. So where are all the new recruits? Let me offer a word of caution about the NSRE estimate. As we look more closely at the lower end of the birding specialization scale, we find casual birders whose interest is peripheral. These "uninitiated" often express an undifferentiated interest in nature, and birds offer ease-of-entry into the natural world. Just as there are people who occasionally fish but do not consider themselves to be anglers, and people who join Ducks Unlimited but do not hunt waterfowl, there are people who feed, photograph, and watch birds who would never consider themselves a "birder." In wildlife-related recreation, the act of adopting a title or label (birder, hunter, angler) is as momentous as a coming-of-age ceremony in Papua New Guinea. To call oneself a "birder" is to accept membership in a clan with traditions, rules, mores, and its own mythology. No wonder so many shy away when I ask the question, "Are you a birder?" The NRSE only asks for an indication of participation (did you or did you not), not a confession that the respondent had indeed joined the club. Given the import we place on the act of joining (are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?), we should not be surprised that most bird-watching Americans fall beneath our radar screen. Growth, it would appear, has been most profound at the undifferentiated end of the scale. This mass of uninitiated bird enthusiasts, amorphous and ill-defined as it is, represents the vast majority of the 71 million birders reported by Cordell. Hunting and fishing are powerful engines for conservation in the United States. Funding schemes such as Pittman-Robertson and Wallop-Breaux have financed wildlife and habitat restoration projects through the nation. Hunters and anglers must officially "join" (by purchasing a license, a gun or rod, and ammunition or bait) to practice their passion. Birders do not. No state demands that birders buy a license or permit. Hunters and anglers are organized and segmented (and taxed) by legislative fiat. Birders remain adrift, each one of the 71 million negotiating a singular set of alliances, friendships, and memberships. The "uninitiated" birder is the elephant in the bathtub. Most organizations, agencies, and communities have remained fixed on serving the needs of the most avid and committed birders. Yet our elephant has grown too large to ignore. Wildlife conservation in American can no longer be financed by hunters and anglers alone. Their numbers are diminishing, and our conservation needs are expanding. These unaffiliated bird watchers travel, spend, and recreate. The fact that they do not join the National Audubon Society or ABA does not diminish their importance. Birding is due emancipation, a release. The future of bird conservation in American may very well depend on our ability to get past out-dated structures, approaches, and organizations and to quickly reach and unite those who truly hold the future of this wonderful recreation, birding, in their hands. Trip du Jour: November 4, 2001
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