In 2024, the Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (NEAFWA), working with the Wildlife Management Institute and the North American Lead-free Partnership (Partnership), received a Multi-state Conservation Grant to engage various stakeholder groups through a series of modern hunting ammunition workshops, outreach programs, and sportsmen’s events in 2024 and 2025. These engagements, run by the Partnership, provided information on best management practices to manage unintentional ingestion by wildlife of lead from hunting ammunition. Commitment to promoting voluntary, non-regulatory outreach and incentive programs is the underpinning of this effort to effectively protect scavenging wildlife populations, ensure effective harvest of wildlife, and maintain public support for hunting. With any successful conservation communication program, effective social science is crucial to ensure messaging and programs are relevant, impactful, and effective in engaging audiences. As part of the grant, focus groups and interviews were conducted by DJ Case and Associates to understand how participants viewed the approach, content, and delivery of outreach.

North American Lead-Free Partnership

Throughout 2024 and 2025, 30 modern hunting ammunition workshops were conducted in the Northeast from Maine to West Virginia. These workshops engaged nearly 600 NEAFWA member agency staff, volunteers, hunter education instructors, industry stakeholders, and leaders in the hunting community throughout 13 different NEAFWA member states. Participants that engaged through workshops in 2024 were identified into two stakeholder groups to interview through human dimensions focus groups (agency staff and volunteer hunter education instructors). Participants that engaged through workshops in 2025 were identified into two additional stakeholder focus groups (law enforcement professionals and big game managers/stakeholder leaders). Focus group interviews were conducted by DJ Case and Associates at the conclusion of each workshop season (2024 and 2025) and the associated response themes and discussion points were analyzed and reported in two human dimensions focus group reports, an Agency Staff and Volunteer Hunter Education Instructors report and a Law Enforcement, Big Game Managers, and Non-Agency Stakeholders report.

There are a number of key takeaways from these human dimensions studies with an overall recognition that the workshops were well received and should be maintained into the future. There are also additional opportunities for improvement in overall programming (e.g. train the trainer programs, toolkits, additional outreach resources, incentive programs, refinement of messaging) that can make voluntary hunting ammunition best management practices more scalable, effective, and relevant. These takeaways are already being considered by NEAFWA and the Partnership, as well as a variety of other partners as outreach efforts evolve going into the future. The future is bright when it comes to engaging those that care about hunting, wildlife, and bullet performance, and using these key components of social science can only improve these efforts into the future.

The North American Lead-free Partnership website provides a more detailed summary of the NEAFWA Evaluation research.