Hiroto "Hiro" Hayashi

In-person events are of high value to both customers of agencies and have been shown to contribute to positive agency perception. They are also a challenge to scale due to the high level of investment in terms of time and funding required. Additionally, many programs do not create a smooth customer pathway, which can lead to higher churn rates. 

Indiana DNR, in collaboration with DJ Case & Associates, has developed a novel solution. In 2025, the Indiana DNR debuted 6 new in-person courses for use by both internal staff and external partners, including local NGOs. Courses are consistent in content and design, are simple to use, and can be implemented broadly to expand the reach of current R3 initiatives and help unify Indiana’s conservation community.

The lessons included: Basic Fishing - Panfish, Bass Fishing Basics, Catfish Fishing Basics, Firearm Deer Hunting Basics, Squirrel Hunting Basics, and Duck Hunting Basics - Dabbling Ducks.

State fish and wildlife agencies have long voiced a need to raise awareness of their role in delivering natural resources conservation among the general public. Some local efforts have shown promise, but previous national efforts have fallen short. By developing an understanding of how to reach audiences outside of the typical outdoor recreationists, identifying the messages that resonate best with them, and achieving a favorable perception change as a result, state agencies would gain a broader, deeper support base, which would lead to better and more effective conservation efforts. 

The original Making It Last campaign (found here) was a ready-to-use, branded campaign developed for this purpose and provided for states to utilize. However, states were hesitant to use the campaign and asked instead for a “formula” that would allow them to create messages that meshed better with their particular brands and communication efforts. This project set out to discover that formula. 

The recommendations provided below emphasize steps an agency can take in developing a campaign to increase favor and garner new support among the general public. Strategies include selecting topics of interest that attract the public, image selection, content development, vocabulary choices, media platforms for distribution, additional resources to support the public's continued engagement with the agency, and metrics for evaluating campaign success.

LearnHunting.org is a website designed for new adult hunters interested in finding experienced hunters who can offer one-on-one guidance and social support. According to previous research (The Missing Link in R3: Making Mentorship Work, August 2020; Wildlife Management Institute with Southwick Associates and DJ Case & Associates), new hunters and mentors alike trust state fish and wildlife agencies to help broker this type of relationship. The LearnHunting website’s roster of mentors was prepopulated in pilot states with state-certified hunter education instructors who were willing to provide guidance and support through this non-traditional medium. The goal of this project was to pilot test methods for recruiting new and potential adult hunters to utilize the platform. 

The International Hunter Education Association-USA (IHEA-USA), eight pilot state agencies, and DJ Case & Associates (DJ Case) provided support for this project by focusing on creating and testing marketing campaigns in the eight pilot states. These campaigns directed new and potential hunters to the LearnHunting.org website and encouraged them to select a hunting mentor through the platform. Parallel campaigns sought to engage additional mentors to further populate the roster of instructors.

Pilot state testing revealed very useful results. In general, social media can provide a higher number of impressions than paid search ads, but often at a higher cost. Paid search ads generate fewer impressions but at a much lower cost per conversion and with a higher conversion rate. Simply stated, social media ads get agencies in front of the largest volume of people, while paid search ads get agencies in front of the right people at the right time in their hunting journey. Some key recommendations from this testing include using state logos in ads, performing social media burst campaigns that run prior to and overlap with an upcoming hunting season, and funding ongoing paid search campaigns to connect with new adult hunters during the right time in their hunting journey.

In 2024, the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and DJ Case & Associates conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of MDC programs intended to recruit, retain, or reactivate (R3) hunters, anglers, trappers, and recreational shooters. The project was designed to gain insight into current programming and inform future program design, delivery, and evaluation. It was intended, in other words, to begin answering these overarching questions: What are MDC’s R3 efforts currently achieving, and why? What could they achieve, and how?

Based on analyses of agency databases and survey results, as well as interviews conducted during the course of the project, this report shares findings concerning MDC R3 programs and events, as well as participants’ motivations, experiences, and needs. Though some findings are specific to MDC, many suggest patterns which, though inferred from a limited data set, may prove worthy of consideration by other agencies and worthy of further research.

The project team found that participants are motivated to attend R3 events by factors that (1) often emerge out of relationships and/or personal interests in developing specific skills and (2) vary somewhat among new, active, and returning participants. Participants are highly satisfied with individual MDC R3 events, which yield helpful, though limited, boosts in skills, knowledge, and confidence.

Across new, active, and returning participants, the ideal recipe for sustained participation appears to be similar: personal motivation plus connection with others who are also enthusiastic about the activity. Except for those pursuing trapping, most participants reported that R3 events did not significantly increase their sense of connection with other individuals or groups. Based on project findings, this report offers two sets of recommendations: one related to program evaluation, the other to program design and delivery.

Youth shooting sports programs are among the fastest growing youth sports programs in the country, but little is known about participation of underrepresented groups. By understanding the barriers these populations face, coaches and other practitioners can develop strategies to increase their participation and representation in the shooting sports. The goal of this project is to understand how to increase and improve efforts to recruit more diverse participants into youth shooting sports such as archery and trap shooting. This report summarizes Phase One of the project: findings of focus groups conducted by DJ Case & Associates to help inform the development of recruitment tools and efforts in Phase Two.

The DJ Case team conducted focus groups with shooting sports coaches and participants as well as with students who do not participate in shooting sports. Findings include insights into:

• Why students do/don’t participate in high school sports, in general
• Why students do/don’t participate in high school archery teams
• Why students do/don’t participate in high school shooting sports teams

These findings, combined with the findings of past studies, were used to develop recommendations as to how high school shooting sports teams could best attract more diverse participants. These recommendations include the use of:

• Diversified imagery and representation to showcase different genders, ethnicities, and physical abilities
• Strategic messaging and imagery to address perceived barriers
• Specialized new shooter events to bridge first-time to competition-style learning

As part of a 2022 Multi-State Grant, the Association for Conservation Information (ACI) and DJ Case & Associates utilized social listening to monitor the social media posts about every US state fish and wildlife agency. Every other week, reports were sent to state agencies, and at the end of the year, thousands of posts were analyzed for trends that could be useful in state agencies’ efforts to manage their brands in social media.  

We were able to develop queries for 50 state agencies and monitor those queries for a year. Every single state received these reports. Many reports went to multiple divisions/work units in an agency. These have been helpful to agencies in understanding what is being said about them in real-time.

In 2023, DJ Case is expanding those queries alongside WSFR and ACI to include property names (WMAs, parks, boat ramps, piers, etc.), greatly expanding the number of posts we collect. We are using our agency contacts for each state to help identify which additional areas they would like to hear about. We are also splitting our reports into two modules.

1. Incoming reports are conversations happening outside the agency about the agency 
2. Outgoing reports capture the conversations started or promoted by the agency through an agency's own social media

We are adding to the existing queries for all 50 state fish and wildlife agencies and are monitoring social media conversations for: 

• Positive and negative conversations that revolve around agencies 
• Demographics of the people having these conversations 
• What triggers these conversations 
• How these conversation threads move through social media channels 

We will analyze the data and report results and trends about what social media users are actually saying about fish and wildlife agencies.

Joined DJ Case and Associates as an engagement strategist and project manager. 

There are many factors that impact hunting participation. Biological capacity often caps the number of hunters for big game animals while development and posted land reduces participation in all types of hunting. Hunters' perceptions of overcrowding and/or game scarcity, distances required to access hunting, plus mandatory hunter education might further dissuade participation. In addition, constant social attention on ‘trophy species’ might be reducing interest and participation in hunting for small game, waterfowl, and other species, especially among new recruits. Concerns have been heard that the outdoor media’s frequent focus on over-subscribed hunts and occasional questioning of the necessity of R3 programs can turn hunters against R3. These issues may eventually combine to cap hunters’ numbers, push out existing hunters when new hunters are recruited, and potentially grow opposition to R3 efforts. Considering national trends in applied R3 efforts, hunting participation and public perceptions cannot be affected by a single or even several organizations. The R3 community must work together to answer questions and implement any changes. With coordination and facilitation from the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, this project will bring together leading R3 organizations to discuss and prioritize the issues, oversee research, develop potential community responses and actions to address R3 capacity and perception issues, and ultimately oversee implementation.

Unlike many American demographics, little qualitative or quantitative data has been generated capable of documenting the barriers, experiences, and perceptions of Black hunters in a scientifically rigorous or defendable way. Consequently, natural resource management agencies have been chronically ill-equipped to deliver programs, practices, and engagement points to Black Americans that effectively address the specific, and often obscured, needs of this community. Additionally, past efforts have a), proven too generalized to capture the critical nuance behind the barriers and needs of the Black outdoorsperson, b) lacked incorporation of established social science best-practices for researching marginalized communities, and c) failed to provide actionable and effective recommendations for agencies committed to serving and engaging broader constituencies. This project is working to correct the above gaps and deficiencies in our knowledge of engagement strategies for Black outdoorspersons and to empower agencies to implement strategies that can help re-enforce the tradition of Black hunters in America. 

Published Writing

• Minnesota Conservation Volunteer Magazine
• Florida Sportsman Magazine
• Minnesota Trout Unlimited
• The Fly Fish Journal 
• The Sun
• Everest News

Joined Fishing For All as Outreach Coordinator and Media Manager running social media, bi-weekly newsletter, outreach programs, guide trips, and partnerships

Graduated from Black Hills State University in Spearfish, SD with a Bachelor of Science in English and minors in Outdoor Education and Professional Writing.

Certified as a Level 5 "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" Instructor with The TEFL Academy Program 

Certified as South Dakota Master Naturalist with state's first ever master naturalist cohort.

Certified as an official NAI CIG

• Fishing Skills Instructor, Social Media Manager, and Environmental Educator
• Implemented watershed and R3 education in Greater Minneapolis Area
• Worked with MNTU's Trout In the Classroom education program
• Developed media coverage of historical stream improvement sites
• Shot and edited photography and videography concerning fishing skills and aquatic insect ID

Certified Collegiate Outdoor Leadership Program Leader (COLP) for fishing programming