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USGS Friday’s Findings: Do Birds of a Feather Really Flock Together?
April 21, 2023 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Title: Do Birds of a Feather Really Flock Together?
Speaker: Brandon J. Barlow, Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Alumnus, 2023 NOAA SeaGrant Knauss Fellow
Date: April 21 at 2:00 pm Eastern
Summary: Urban recreational behavior is an essential component to understanding both how our recreational opportunities will be utilized and how they can be further improved. By improving recreational opportunities, we can ensure safe and reliable emotional and physical outlets for users. As urban areas continue to expand in terms of population size and demographic diversity, urban recreational opportunities will also see growth in the number of recreational users. The goal of this project was to understand differences in recreational behavior among demographic groups in an urban landscape. The objectives of the project are to test if recreational behavior can be organized via demographics, anglers were organized according to demographic groups represented by demographics found in their respective Zone Improvement Plan codes. Anglers were used as a proxy for urban recreationists, as they are a strong representative of urban recreational site use in urban areas. We asked anglers to complete a survey of questions that represent a variety of angler behaviors. The collected data were compared to the demographic data provided by Esri. From this research, it will be further understood 1) whether demographics can be used as an effective means of grouping recreational behavior, 2) how urban recreational behaviors differ among demographic groups, 3) how the concept of organizing recreational behaviors according to demographic groups can be used from a management perspective, and 4) how the method of using demographics to both understand and predict recreational behavior can be used on a variety of spatial and temporal scales across multiple disciplines.