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Wild birds are big business in Minnesota. How big? Well over $360 million a year spent by almost two million people interested in birds.
According to a 1991 survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1,953,000 persons in Minnesota participated in wildlife activities. Of that 1.9 million, 95 percent (1.81 million) wanted to see birds. That means there are more birders in Minnesota than there are hunters and fishermen combined.
Money spent birding included $180 million on food, lodging, and transportation, and another $180 million on gear and equipment. Please note that these 1991 numbers have grown significantly in the past six years with the growth in popularity of birding. Allowing for a 10 percent annual growth rate in this industry, it is safe to say that birding and other non-consumptive wildlife activities account for more than $500 million in annual expenditures in Minnesota. Half a billion dollars is big business.
Minnesota residents spent $100 million in 1995 for wild-bird feed. Wild-bird feed sales here are increasing at a rate of eight to 10 percent per year. Birding is second only to gardening as the most rapidly growing leisure interest in the country. The number of bird-watchers grew by 155 percent from 1983 to 1995, according to the most recent government survey. Ellen Graham of the Wall Street Journal recently quoted Sharper Image founder and chairman Richard Thalheimer as saying, "My marketers tell me that bird-watching is the single biggest spectator sport in America."
Birding enthusiasts nationally spent $5.2 billion in 1991 on bird observation, photography, and feeding, according to a study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the U.S. Census Bureau. Bird hunters spent only $1.3 billion.
In 1992 it was estimated by USFWS that U.S. citizens spent about $2 billion per year for wild-bird food and another $470 million for bird feeders and nest boxes. Since this figure is growing at a rate of eight to 10 percent per year, this year, 1997, national expenditures could come close to $3.9 billion for feed and feeders alone.
· Number of bird-watchers 1,810,000
· Number of fishermen 1,109,000
· Number of hunters 452,000
· Money spent by bird-watchers 1991 $345,333,000
· Money spent by hunters 1991 $289,690,000
· Money spent by fishermen 1991 $846,246,000
· Number of retail stores in Minnesota that focus sales strictly on wild-bird feed and bird-related merchandise 28.
· Jobs provided in Minnesota by bird-related businesses: 2,910. (Birding supported 234,000 jobs across the nation in 1991.)(These numbers come from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.)
In the last 10 years in Minnesota, over two dozen wild-bird specialty stores have opened. Many garden centers, hardware stores, supermarkets, country elevators, and farm-supply stores also have created wild-bird sections to supply an ever-increasing demand for field guides, bird feeders, bird food, bird baths, and related equipment.
Surveys find about 60 percent of birders are male, 40 percent female. For comparison, 92 percent of hunters and 69 percent of fishing fans are male.
The chambers of commerce in Thief River Falls and Winona advertise local birding opportunities in a variety of national birding magazines. And Minnesota has a number of people who earn their living guiding birders on trips to many parts of the state. Birders come here from throughout the United States and from foreign countries to see our special birds, even during the heart of our worst winters.
But generally, Minnesota birding tourism is in its infancy. Little has been done to advertise the full extent of wildlife tourism opportunities in Minnesota. The huge Minnesota resort industry is just beginning to recognize the potential that bird-watchers offer. For many years, Duluth has hosted a birding festival Hawk Weekend centered at the Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve on Skyline Drive. Hundreds of people attend this event each year, and hundreds more come to Hawk Ridge from late August through November to watch migrating raptors. The state's second full-fledged birding festival is planned for Detroit Lakes in May 1997, centering around Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge.
What is the economic potential for birders and eco-tourism? At the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas 17,000 visiting birders spent $1 million locally in 1995. At Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, the annual expenditure by visitors the same year was more than $14 million. Birders were worth from $25 to $160 per visit to communities near these refuges.
In 1992, the Houston Audubon Society determined that the economic contribution to the local economy by birders visiting its High Island Sanctuary exceeded $2.5 million. Of this, $2.4 million came from non-local birders. If you apply an economic multiplier to calculate the rollover effect from these tourism dollars, the impact grows to between $4 million and $6 million per year. And the season for birding tourists at High Island lasts only two months!
Healthy forests are important to the Minnesota economy. Forestry and forest products provide over 54,000 jobs here and $2.2 billion in personal income. Forest birds are important to this sector of our economy. For example, forest birds, mostly warblers, help control populations of spruce budworm and may lengthen the time between destructive budworm outbreaks. Duluth author Jan Green in her 1995 book "Birds and Forests: A Management and Conservation Guide," wrote, "In the only study that put a dollar amount on the value of songbird predation on insects, the calculation showed a positive economic benefit: $1,820 per year per square kilometer ($4,720 per year per square mile) for predation by birds on the western spruce budworm." If one were to play a small numbers game you could generate the following statistic: Minnesota has approximately 16.7 million acres of forest, 14.7 million acres classified as commercial timberland. The are 640 acres in a square mile. That gives us 22,969 square miles of Minnesota forest. Forest birds, then, contribute over $108 million each year toward the health of our forest industries.
Minnesota is located where western prairies meet boreal forest and southeastern river-valley ecology. These three major habitat types give Minnesota a significant and highly varied bird population: 421 different species of birds have been recorded here, about half of those recorded for all of North America.
Northern and east-central Minnesota lie in a narrow forest belt (that stretches from the New England states across the Great Lakes) that supports a higher diversity of breeding songbirds than anywhere else in the United States and southern Canada. Minnesota's extensive forest region is considered by leading ornithologists as one of only four remaining areas in the United States where the long-term conservation of forest birds can be accomplished. (The other three areas are the extensive forests of Maine, the Great Smoky mountains, and the Adirondacks.)
The American Birding Association asked its members to list the species of North American birds they most wanted to see. Of the top 12 species listed, six can be found in Minnesota: Boreal Owl, Great Gray Owl, Connecticut Warbler, Northern Hawk Owl, Yellow Rail, Snowy Owl. Gyrfalcon, another highly sought bird, also can be found in Minnesota most winters.
The official list of bird species recorded in Minnesota stands at 422. Of that number, 305 species can be found in the state on a regular, annual basis. About 260 species nest here. For a list of bird species regulary seen in Minnesota, see chapter 8.