CHAPTER III 



DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AMD HUNTER 

 MANAGEMENT PREFERENCES 



The Montana Waterfowl Survey posed many questions to hunters 

 regarding their socioeconomic characteristics, the types of 

 waterfowl hunting trips they took and their opinions on waterfowl 

 management issues. The relatively large number of respondents to 

 this survey allowed the sample to be disaggregated in several 

 ways. Previous studies have shown significant differences 

 between resident and nonresident recreationists (Duffield, Loomis 

 and Brooks, 1988 and Duffield and Neher, 1990) . Accordingly, the 

 sample was divided into Montana residents and nonresidents for 

 much of the analysis. Additionally, certain aspects of the 

 survey responses were analyzed according to which waterfowl 

 flyway (Pacific or Central) a hunting trip occurred in. The 

 sizes of the samples in each of these subgroups are shown in 

 Table 1. 



Hunter Characteristics 



The entire sample of 616 survey respondents was disaggregated 

 into resident and nonresident subsamples in order to examine 

 hunter characteristics. Table 2 shows a comparison of resident 

 and nonresident hunter characteristics. Nonresident waterfowl 

 hunters in this sample were, on average, older than residents 

 (44.24 years vs. 38.67 years) and had spent more years hunting 

 waterfowl (22.72 for nonresidents vs. 18.54 for residents). It 

 was not surprising to see that residents spent roughly twice the 

 number of days per year hunting in Montana that nonresidents 

 spent. Two other major differences between resident and 

 nonresident hunters were in the percentage of each group to 

 belong to a sportsman's organization, and the average household 

 income for each group. Of nonresident hunters, 63.1% belonged to 

 a sportsman's club while only 50.3% of resident hunters did 

 likewise. In regards to average family income, resident incomes 

 were substantially lower ($40,333) than nonresident incomes 

 ($56,486) . 



Waterfowl Hunting Trip Characteristics 



Several survey questions asked respondents about characteristics 

 of a particular waterfowl hunting trip that they had taken. A 

 summary of responses to these questions is presented in Table 3. 

 The major differences between trips taken by resident hunters and 

 those taken by nonresidents can be seen in the percentage of each 

 group to hire a guide, the average number of miles driven by each 

 group and the average hours of driving time. While only .6% of 



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