Hunting: “a dying sport”?

[Macintosh]

I'm not 100% sure what you are suggesting.

In my state hunter numbers increased during covid as govt agencies were encouraging people to get out and hunt and fish, people had time on their hands, so license sales increased significantly for the first time in decades--but I assume other states are different. A small decrease is still a decrease, yet I see people throughout this thread insisting hunter numbers must be up based on their perception of crowding or the number of hunters they meet, but the actual license sales simply do not back that up in most cases.

Regarding revenue, the 59million revenue in '20 is not an additional 7million compared to 2004--if you account for inflation that is a decline. In 2020 dollars the revenue would have been:
2004: 71million (52mm in 2004$=71mm in 2020$ using https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ )
2020: 59million
71mm to 59mm is a 16.9% decrease--if you disagree I'd be happy to buy a couple of your rifles or alpha-optics or your house or truck in 2004 dollars?

What I see in the data is fewer hunters hunted more (fewer licensed hunters, yet more tags issued), which increased crowding (fewer hunters/more tags=each license holder on average held more tags and therefore likely hunted more, which matches the common perception of increased crowding) while still representing a decline in participation (2015 license holders down 6.5% from 2004, 2020 still about 1.7% down from 2004) and a decline in revenue (2020 17% down from 2004 when adjusted for inflation).

Do you disagree? If you think 2020 is a bad example, then lets pick a different year and look at those numbers. It looks like 2019 revenue might have been much higher in colorado but I wasnt able to find numbers in the same format on a quick look, so if someone can find the same numbers for 2019, 2021, I'm all ears. Even if colorado was up in 2019, and 2020 numbers were significantly depressed by covid (??) (and there are a few places that have increased in the past few years for sure), the overall nationwide trend is not the same thing as an individual state, yet because of the funding mechanism, nationwide numbers still affect the states. I just want to have the conversation based on the actual numbers, not people's perceptions.

Here's some recent info reporting on trend since 2020: https://cahss.org/our-research/hunting-license-sales-2020-2021/
"Among the 46 reporting states:

• Overall, hunting license sales decreased by approximately 1.9% in 2021 compared to 2020.
• Resident license sales were down 4.0%.
• Nonresident license sales increased by 12.9%.
• 17 of 46 states saw an overall increase in the number of licenses sold in 2021 compared to 2020.
• License sales were down overall in each of the four geographical regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and West), with percentages ranging from -1.0 to -2.4%.
• While 2021 license sales were slightly down overall, sales increased in three of the first four months compared to 2020, suggesting the pandemic may have encouraged many hunters to plan ahead earlier than normal."

And some reporting on sales during covid: https://cahss.org/our-research/covid-19-and-hunting-license-sales/

• "Overall, hunting license sales in 2020 increased by approximately 5% over 2019.
• Resident license sales were up 5.4%.
• Nonresident license sales increased by 1.6%.
• 35 of 40 states saw an overall increase in the number of licenses sold in 2020 compared to 2019.
• License sales were up in all four regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and West), though at different levels for each region.
• While 2020 license sales were up overall, sales decreased in November 2020 compared to 2019, suggesting the pandemic may have encouraged many hunters to purchase earlier than normal. This indicates potential increases in days of hunting activity in 2020."

Here is us fish and wildlife service data for 2020 consolidated to show every state, same format as earlier links I posted: https://web.archive.org/web/2021110...enseInfo/Natl Hunting License Report 2020.pdf

 

[elkyinzer]

More people are gung-ho about it and spending time and money to travel to the best destinations. The casual close to home hunter is dying. Posted signs and loss of small game habitat is killing them.

 

[Macintosh]

@Glockster26 , I can see why you are skeptical. I dug into numbers--I do numbers for a living so I'm weird like that--and Kansas, where I see you are from, is very different than the rest of the country in terms of the trend in license sales, far more even than the rocky mtn states people mostly complain about here. Kansas grew 27% in total license holders from 2004>2015, and almost 40% from 2004>2020...while at the same time total tags sold was flat or a tiny bit down. So anyone used to hunting kansas probably saw a significant decline in opportunity, it appears that the same number of tags were distributed among many, many fewer people 20-ish years ago than they are today. Revenue also increased significantly, even adjusted for inflation--2004>2015 revenue increased 37%, and from 2004>2020 67%. So given this I might laugh at what I wrote too.

Compare that to national trend:
total hunter numbers decreased 1% from 2004>2015, and 1.2% from 2004>2020 (given that 2020 saw a 5% increase nationally according to the above link I think its safe to say nationally 2019 would have shown a more significant decline from 2004). One worry on this is that the baby-boom is in the process of aging out of hunting, and simple demographics mean there are fewer people to replace those hunters, so overall this decline is more or less certain to accelerate.
At the same time, total tags sold increased almost 5% from 2004>2015, and almost 14% from 2004>2020. Adjusted Revenue however, declined 0.6% 2004>2015, and 0.2% 2004>2020.

If I look only at the group of what I consider the "most talked about" states on rokslide--wyoming, colorado, montana, idaho, utah, new mexico, arizona and nevada--the numbers look like this:
total license holders grew 3.2% from 2004>2015, and 17.3% from 2004>2020
total tags sold grew 8% from 2004>2015, and 30% from 2004>2020
Adjusted revenue declined 6% from 2004>2015, but grew 0.4% from 2004 to 2020 so a bit of a rebound here possibly.

Now, I have no idea if tag formats would have changed the numbers during this period--for example, if colorado went from having 1 or 2 rifles seasons for elk, to having 4 rifles seasons for elk, the number of tags sold might have increased dramatically--so take some things with a grain of salt. But, I hope it's obvious that that the trend folks are talking about looks very different in some places compared to others, and that while some places are seeing significant increases at some level, overall many measures of hunting participation and the conservation funding that goes with that are down.

so, hopefully this helps cut through some of the perception versus reality. I have the above in a simple spreadsheet if anyone wants it using hte US fish and wildlife numbers linked above from 2004, 2015 and 2020, just shoot me a pm with an email and I'll send it.

 

[Deadfall]

Idk about being a dying sport...Sure does seem to be a lost art.

 

[jayhawk]

I just don't understand it. Everywhere I go there are more hunters, more fisherman, more people everywhere than there were a few years ago. Yet these numbers show that hunter numbers are going down? What am I missing?

 

[bgipson]

I just don't understand it. Everywhere I go there are more hunters, more fisherman, more people everywhere than there were a few years ago. Yet these numbers show that hunter numbers are going down? What am I missing?

Participation levels. The number of casual participants is down but those who continue to enjoy this lifestyle are spending more time afield. 20 guys spending 1 weekend is the same as 10 guys spending 2 weekends in the field. Now if those same 10 spend 3 or 4 weekends out, you really start to see them because they are present on the landscape more.