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1 Outdoor Recreation: Historical and Anticipated Trends as conflicting (Nash 1982:316). Quantifying the magnitude and the nature of the conflict requires, in part, a review of recent historical trends in the number of outdoor recreationists. Recent Historical Trends in Outdoor Recreation To characterize the temporal data series relevant to outdoor recreation, growth rate for a given activity is usually compared to population growth (see Snepenger and Ditton 1985). Although growth rates enable one to infer trends in the popularity of an activity, statistics on participation (e.g., the number of people, number of visits, and aggregate time on the recreation landscape) are necessary to judge the potential impacts on wildlife resources. Number of participants, as an indicator of potential impact, is particularly important in light of the decreasing availability of places for outdoor recre- ation. Although the United States has a substantial public land base to support outdoor recreation (300 million ha), much of the potential land and water recreation base is under rural private ownership (60% of United States land area) with restricted access to outdoor recreationists. In 1987, only 23% of rural private lands were open to the public without restriction, a decline of nearly 30 million ha since 1977 (Cordell et al. 1990:14). More recent evidence indicates that the trend toward greater closure and exclusive leasing of private land is continuing (Cordell et al. 1993). TRENDS IN WILDLIFE-DEPENDENT ACTIVITIES Trends in wildlife-dependent activities have been mixed over the last three decades (Fig. 1.1). More people participated in fishing (freshwater fishing in particular) than in any other wildlife-dependent activity. In 1985, nearly 25% of this country's inhabitants fished. In contrast to the monotonic increase in the number of anglers, hunter numbers have remained essentially unchanged since 1975. The stability in the number of total hunters, however, is misleading. The number of small game and migratory bird hunters has declined substantially since 1975, while the number of hunters pursuing big game species has increased during every survey period since 1955. The divergence in participation trends by species category may be ex- plained, in part, by trends in game populations. Small game species associated with agricultural habitats, including ring-necked pheasant, northern bob- white, and cottontail have shown declines in abundance (Flather and Hoek- stra 1989:33). Similarly, breeding duck populations declined by 30% from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s (U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service 1992). Conversely, big game populations have increased in most states (Flather and Hoekstra 1989:28).