Southwick Associates has been busy working with the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) to highlight another financial pillar of conservation—fishing—as described in the report, “Sportfishing in America: An Economic Force for Conservation.” With the United States Fish and Wildlife Service reporting that 33 million Americans age 16 or older went fishing in 2011, and ASA estimating there are potentially as many as 60 million Americans of all ages who consider themselves “anglers” in the country, (meaning they take part in fishing at least once every five years) the sportfishing community is undoubtedly vital to the economy and conservation.
In fact, anglers spend approximately $48 billion annually on equipment, licenses, trips, and other fishing-related items or events with an economic multiplier effect of $115 billion impacting our nation’s economy. Each angler spends roughly $1,441 per year supporting 828,000 jobs that account for as much as $35 billion in salaries and wages. Plus, through excise taxes on fishing tackle, fishing licenses and personal donations, anglers contributed nearly $1.5 billion in dedicated funding to fisheries conservation in 2011. And these numbers promise to grow with the population of anglers growing 11 percent between 2006 and 2011.
More Fishing Quick Facts
- More Americans fish than play golf (21 million) and tennis (13 million) combined.
- If fishing were a company, the amount spent by anglers to support fishing-related retail sales would rank number 51 on the Fortune 500 list.
- Fishing generated more revenue ($48 billion) than Lockheed Martin ($47 billion), Intel ($44 billion), Chrysler ($42 billion) or Google ($38 billion).
- The economic activity generated by sportfishing is greater than the economies, measured in Gross State Product, of 17 states.
View more facts and figures, as well as the full report.
