On Wednesday, men and women, boys and girls from across Kansas will head into the outdoors, rifles in hand, for the start of the state's 42nd consecutive firearms deer season.

Nationally, deer hunting has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. And Kansas, which in the last 10 years has become a haven for hunters looking to connect with trophy-quality whitetail bucks, has become a destination many are willing to pay top dollar to hunt.

But on Wednesday, and for the next two weeks of the deer-hunting season, the number of Kansans with hunting licenses will probably be fewer than last year, and almost assuredly fewer than five years ago.

Hunting, national experts will tell you, is in a state of steady decline. Hunters' ranks have declined nationally by more than 1 million in the past decade, even as the national population has grown.

And in Kansas, even as the state continues to draw more and more out-of-state hunters, the same statistics are true. In 2006, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks sold 20,000 fewer hunting licenses than in 1990.

That decline has financial implications that reach far beyond the issue of an aging hunting populace.

For the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, it means less income with which to manage the state's ever-changing wildlife populations as well as its non-hunting-related activities, the bulk of which are paid for by hunters and fishermen, either through license sales or federal taxes placed on hunting and fishing equipment.

And for those trying to combat the problem by mentoring kids and hosting programs to introduce people to the sporting life, the declining trend in hunting is seen as even more dire - leading, some fear, to a future generation that is more connected to the virtual world than the natural one, and a society that no longer sees protecting wild places as a priority.

Mike Miller, who coordinates youth mentoring opportunities for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, says understanding the complexities of the hunter decline is difficult at best.

There are the obvious reasons: more people moving out of rural areas into urban ones; the decline of small family farms; a go-go-go culture that teaches kids and adults to schedule ever more activities into a finite amount of time.

Then there are the issues that hunters worry about: the difficulty of obtaining access to hunting land; the high costs associated with licenses and gear; the loss of traditional hunting opportunities like, Miller said, the decline of the quail population in southeast Kansas, once one of the premier spots in the country.

All these shifting dynamics, however, don't tell the whole story, as each hunter who gives up the sport usually does so gradually, for his own individual reasons.

"Hunting is a pretty social heritage; it's something people do together," Miller said. "Sometimes it's as simple as 'My buddy moved away' or 'My dad is no longer living.' Most people today learned to hunt from their grandfather or father; that's a cycle that can be broken, and suddenly their kids don't get to experience what it's like to go hunting."



The next generation

On a mild March day last spring, 20 teenagers gathered in a field near Garden City and took their part in a tradition that dates back to the days of their great-grandfathers - a Kansas prairie pheasant hunt.

In a field stocked to the brim with pen-raised birds, kids from places like Wichita, Great Bend and Medicine Lodge got the chance to experience a hunt, many for the first time. Walking through the fields with professional guides and their bird dogs, the day was the hunt of a lifetime - virtually everyone got a handful of chances to take a bird.

The hunt, sponsored by a guide service in Garden City, was a memorable moment for the kids of the Pass It On program, a Big Brothers Big Sisters-affiliated program that tries to connect outdoors-minded kids with adult mentors.

Mike Christensen, the director of Pass It On, said the organization's hope is that by connecting kids with good teachers and good outdoor opportunities - whether it's hunting, fishing or hiking - those kids will grow up to cherish the outdoors as adults.

But, Christensen said, his organization faces some fairly stiff competition for kids' time.

"Anymore, kids have a schedule that doesn't allow any free time for play," Christensen said. "They have all these activities that have their day scheduled. It doesn't allow for any free time to just play outdoors."

Christensen said parents' concerns about playing outside freely, instead of in organized activities, also create a barrier between kids and the natural world, hindering them from becoming dedicated hunters or fishers as they grow older.

And the rise of single-parent families, the competition from video games, 24-hour children's programming and other pulls at kids' and teenagers' time are changing the culture of even the young people who grow up in areas where hunting opportunities abound.

Christensen said that at a youth hunt event this past August, he met a Dodge City boy who had never been on a dirt road before - something Christensen found surprising, but not unusual.

"With the popularity of video games, there's so many kids who don't do anything but sit in front of that thing," Christensen said. "And then you get the situation where you have kids say, 'I like to be indoors because that's where the electrical outlets are.' "

But even as the challenges of getting children into the outdoors mounts, state and federal agencies and national and local sportsmen groups have mounted a fairly strong counter effort to win kids back - and there's some indication it might be working.

In Kansas, the wildlife and parks department has been aggressively targeting youngsters with the creation of youth-exclusive hunting seasons and low-cost licenses.

Miller said the hope is that by giving youths the ability to have a positive day in the field - usually before the regular season starts, so the odds of connecting with wild game are higher - kids will want to go hunting more often.

Nationally, according to data by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, these efforts seem to be paying off. Since 2001, the percentage of hunters between the ages of 6 and 15 has grown by 4 percent.

That increase, however, doesn't mean the total hunting population is growing. In that same period, the number of hunters older than 16 dropped by 3 percent.

But to Miller, the number of kids becoming lifelong hunters isn't as important as the number who are at least positively exposed to the sport each year.

"If you take 100 kids out in the field, a percentage of them will love it and say it's the best thing they've ever done," Miller said. "And you'll have a percentage who say that it was OK - that they'd go again to be with their friends; and then you'd get another group that says hunting isn't for them."

If kids have positive thoughts about hunting activities, Miller said, there's hope they'll grow up to be adults who don't mind supporting natural resource agencies as taxpaying adults.



Why the decline matters

Some hunters might argue that a shrinking population of outdoorsmen is actually a benefit - less competition for game and hunting land.

But the loss of a hunting tradition would have a dire effect on wildlife populations and habitat, both locally and nationally.

In Kansas, roughly 45 percent of the Department of Wildlife and Parks' budget is derived from the sale of fishing and hunting licenses. Another 22 percent of its budget comes from an excise tax paid on hunting and fishing gear.

Those funds pay for more than just the department's activities associated with hunting and fishing, helping to provide funding for state parks and to monitor and assess the state's diverse wildlife and habitat.

"It does concern the agency very much," Miller said. "That's why we're working so hard to reverse the trend."

Nationally, the loss of hunter support spells more disaster, as hunters have been among the strongest supporters of conservation programs in history.

Hunters paying for federal duck stamps helped create and fund the national wildlife refuge system as a way to ensure that birds could continue their traditional migration routes. Hunting-based conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Quail Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation provide millions of dollars to fund habitat improvements each year.

Miller said a task force has been created to look at new ways to encourage people to participate in hunting, noting there is no quick fix to solve the problem.

Some suggestions include lowering the obstacles to get into hunting - like low-cost comprehensive youth licenses that allow young hunters to pursue deer, pheasants and turkey, instead of buying separate licenses for each.

Miller said other ideas include a family license that would encourage parents to hunt with their children as well as special opportunities to introduce adults to the sport, like the Outdoors Women events the state already hosts.

Miller said the agency also hopes to better promote and market hunting opportunities that have changed in the past two decades, encouraging people to take up turkey or goose hunting - sports that previously had limited appeal because of low population numbers.

One program already in place is a new automated licensing system that will allow KDWP to monitor trends in hunting populations over the long term. Before the automated system, studying trends in hunters' activities required agonizing searches through paper records.

"Things have changed. People have different opportunities now," Miller said. "In order for hunting to survive, we need to teach people how to take advantage of the opportunities that we have."



The future?

It's impossible to know what, exactly, the future of hunting in Kansas will look like. Concerns about access to hunting land, competition from the growing number of out-of-state hunters and outfitters, as well as the continued loss of people to urban centers, all create a problem some see as insurmountable.

But Christensen, who daily works with the next generation of hunters, doesn't see it that way. To him, the problem can be solved easily - one new hunter at a time.

"I think it's up to the folks still involved in these activities to make a difference," he said. "You see a lot of people who are very concerned about the loss of our outdoor heritage, and they're doing something about it, getting involved.

"All it takes is finding one kid and taking him hunting or fishing. That's how it starts."