Birders come in all ages, races, sexes, and nationalities and range around the world, connected by an interest in nature and wildlife that is best expressed by birds (photo by Ali Smith).

A striking 96 million people in the United States closely observe, feed, or photograph birds; visit public parks to view birds, and/or maintain landscaping and natural areas around their home for the benefit of birds. That’s more than 35 percent of the nation’s population aged 16 and over – more than 1/3 of us! The eye-popping figures come from an extensive recent survey conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Numbering considerably more birders than the previous 2016 survey, the data was released amid trending newspaper headlines and social media discussions that reflect a worldwide birding boom since the covid outbreak in 2020.

As another threshold to underline the increase in the number of new birders nationwide and worldwide is that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s birding programs, including eBird and use of the Merlin Bird ID app, also reflect the much higher interest in birding. For example, as of March 2023 there were more than 1.5 million active Merlin users in the United States, a 5-fold increase from the 300,000 Merlin users in March 2020. Likewise, eBird monthly checklist submissions more than doubled from 600,000 checklists in March 2020 to 1.3 million by May 2023.

The USFWS survey also shows that birding is big business. More than $6 out of every $10 spent in 2022 on wildlife-related recreation (which also includes fishing and hunting) came from wildlife watching, with birds cited as the greatest focus for wildlife watchers. Birders spent more than $250.2 billion in 2022, including more than $24.6 billion on equipment such as binoculars, cameras, bird food, and special clothing!

Sometimes that spending can add up just by the excitement generated by a single rare bird. A 2023 study published in the journal People and Nature documented that when the Steller’s Sea Eagle appeared at a number of locations along the New England coast during the winter of 2021–22, birders who were eager to view and photograph the largest eagle in the world – a species that normally is found only in northeast Asia – pumped more than $750,000 into local economies in Maine and Massachusetts. (The same adult Steller’s Sea Eagle continues to attract birders to the Maritime region, with the most recent sightings reported last weekend in the Codroy Valley of Newfoundland.)

The data provided in the USFWS report is valuable to many segments of American society, including business, industry, tourism, media, planners, and lawmakers, along with state and national wildlife departments that work in concert with many conservation-oriented agencies to champion and conduct much of the conservation work across the country.

Released as part of the latest “Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation,” conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the report’s authors caution that survey numbers from 2016 and 2022 are not directly comparable due to a change in methodology for collecting the data. However, the information provided has illustrated for decades that birding is a growing activity that’s extremely popular among Americans of all ages, as well as people from around the world, which is very exciting for us all! To review the extensive USFWS report, see Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation