Any other Ohio Sportsman got a email about taking the survey. I went almost all the way through it but when it asked how many children I have and there ages I gave up. Didn’t see a reason why they need this info on a coyote survey.

That is odd. Sounds more like Penn St doing the survey.

I'd guess it's for demographic info that some bureaucrat deemed necessary to the study. It does seek to invade your privacy.

I'd skip that part, if I were you. I always skip survey questions that ask for my income, for instance.

Jim

Probably for, like James said, to get an understanding of the demographics, or the prof in charge of the study required the question for some reason. Where there any other related questions relating to children? Like... Do your children trap with you? Do the run their own traps?

18-24 yr olds with 2 children.. blah blah blah
25-35 yr olds with 2 children.. blah blah
etc, etc, etc.

It may not even have much to do with the study being done, but could be used in future studies. For a coyote survey it is an odd question.

When I was in college and would be doing study surveys we'd ask a lot of odd questions that seemed on the surface to not relate to the study in question, but they were either required by some big wig who wanted the study done, or just to get a general understanding of the "thinking" of the person filling out the survey. Most times you could look at the survey and tell the person requesting it was fishing for something.

James and Elk are on the money, it's all about the demographics.