Hunting: “a dying sport”?

[bgipson]

I was at the range last year in the late summer and there was a 75+ year old lady sighting in a big ole rifle next to me. I starting chatting with her and she tells me “I finally drew the bull moose tag. I don’t even care about hunting anymore but I’m going to get one on principle!” Cracked me up.

Driving out of the mountains late at night a few years back I round a corner and see a truck parked across the road. As I approach somewhat angry that someone was blocking the road I notice it's an outfitters truck and get even more pissed off. Then I see it... a blaze orange walker with an 80some year old lady leaning on it also dressed in orange. We slow down and roll our windows down to hear her excited "I got my moose!" In her squeaky old voice and at that point we were all OK with the inconvenience to our drive home watching the outfitting crew slide her bull in the bed of the truck. Old gal had to of been collecting points for some time for that area so we were happy for her.

 

[chocolab]

There is a nationwide push for R3 (aka find more hunters) because you know hunting is a dying sport. however, in many places hunter numbers haven't declined in recent years, except land open to hunting has dramatically decreased, and agency costs well intended or not (many times not) have skyrocketed. R3 is all about about money to state agencies, not maintaining the custom and heritage of hunting, just about money. I personally don't need to see any more bowhunters or turkey hunters where I live and hunt, we are oversaturated. I'd rather they spent the money on all those R3 feel good positions on improving access and habitat.

 

[406RoadToad]

I hope that next year somebody digs this post up and puts in the number of applicants for tags compared to the number this year… I think there’s going to be a lot of crow eaten when people see that number grow.

 

[RyanT26]

https://ksoutdoors.com/content/download/54980/600092/version/1/file/HarvestReport2020_2021.pdf

Kansas resident deer tag sales (there are some limited entry but mostly OTC) are down 25% from the high 2014.

If you read the hunter survey comments many residents note they are losing places to hunt. People dying, farms getting sold, leased by outfitters, etc.

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Clearly the answer is to try to recruit more hunters into the sport. That’ll fix it. More people in the field the better.

 

[Dos Perros]

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Clearly the answer is to try to recruit more hunters into the sport. That’ll fix it. More people in the field the better.

Fix what?

 

[TheTone]

There is a nationwide push for R3 (aka find more hunters) because you know hunting is a dying sport. however, in many places hunter numbers haven't declined in recent years, except land open to hunting has dramatically decreased, and agency costs well intended or not (many times not) have skyrocketed. R3 is all about about money to state agencies, not maintaining the custom and heritage of hunting, just about money. I personally don't need to see any more bowhunters or turkey hunters where I live and hunt, we are oversaturated. I'd rather they spent the money on all those R3 feel good positions on improving access and habitat.

I think R3 is even more about companies selling more product and gadgets and aome
Agencies just believed what they were being told and went along

 

[Yoder]

In PA numbers are down since 2010. I would bet a good portion of these hunters are getting to an age that they aren't pressuring the animals nearly as much. It's just cool to hunt out west right now. PA has terrible hunting. Especially deer hunting. Nobody should bother hunting here.

Total licenses sold

2010- 925,029
2020- 887,221

 

[jmez]

Total hunter numbers are decreasing. Number of hunters applying for tags out west are increasing. Why is that so hard to understand?

Sent from my moto g power (2021) using Tapatalk

 

[Gun&BowSD]

I hope that next year somebody digs this post up and puts in the number of applicants for tags compared to the number this year… I think there’s going to be a lot of crow eaten when people see that number grow.

That is what I was saying when I started this. I don’t agree that it is dying. Numbers are on the rise everywhere. Just found it interesting people can say it is when there is so much evidence showing the contrary

 

[RyanT26]

Fix what?

Sorry that was sarcasm. Fix the myth that hunting is a dying sport.
More hunters increases the number of Hunter‘s per huntable acre. More hunters also increases people looking for leases.

 

[Mark.c]

I think the COVID hysteria and uncertain economy/political climate pushed many into trying hunting. I took a new hunter in his 30’s on an overnight backpack mule deer hunt. Surprisingly he lacked the physical and mental endurance and quit the next day empty handed. Although I am glad there is new enthusiasm for hunting, the hard work associated with western hunting will likely cool off the numbers in the field.

 

[Ehunter]

I think there are some issues with deer numbers. Alot of hunters in Oregon are going out state due to the deer numbers. Unlike other states Oregon doesn't reduce tags for lower buck to doe ratios. Some guys I know have given up deer hunting altogether. It's also hard to get kids involved when they are not seeing game.

 

[def90]

I was looking at the Idaho super hunt draw stats from 2005 til now. The increase of applicants was staggering. I don't recall exact numbers but the deer category was 4500 entries in 2005, 2021 had over 47,000. They say hunting is a dying sport. Statistics and analytics from whoever the talking heads are aside, everything I have seen in my lifetime has indicated nothing but the opposite. I was fortunate to have come up in the life. And plan to bring mine up the same way. By all accounts, with how lazy and soft people have become these days, kids preferring video games to fresh air... one would think hunting would be dying. But man... I’m just not seeing it.
Social media has its blessings and (mostly) curses. Is that where the numbers are coming from? Is the percentage of people who hunt still the same, just in proportion to huge population increase?

Hunting is a dying sport. Keep in mind hunting includes coon hunters, squirrel hunters, rabbit hunters and so on as well. It’s not just about deer and elk. I would wager that few people here on this board have hunted any of those 3 that I listed in the last year. hunting smaller game species was a way of life years ago, families survived off of it, not so much now.

 

[MallardSX2]

The "old guard" lease fairy deer hunters are dying off by the droves here in Georgia.

Personally, I embrace hunter numbers declining.....finally starting to see some quality bucks come about now that there aren't as many of them in the woods shooting every 4 point and spike that comes by. Times are a changing for the better here in GA.

 

[jayhawk]

There is a nationwide push for R3 (aka find more hunters) because you know hunting is a dying sport. however, in many places hunter numbers haven't declined in recent years, except land open to hunting has dramatically decreased, and agency costs well intended or not (many times not) have skyrocketed. R3 is all about about money to state agencies, not maintaining the custom and heritage of hunting, just about money. I personally don't need to see any more bowhunters or turkey hunters where I live and hunt, we are oversaturated. I'd rather they spent the money on all those R3 feel good positions on improving access and habitat.

This ^^ I hear that hunter numbers are in decline, but all the time I meet more and more new hunters and fishers. The bottom line is we're losing habitat, and private land owners don't want anyone with guns on their land. Can't say I blame them, but that's just the way it is.

Also, I remember a time when people hunted for the sake of hunting and for friendship. Now it's all about the gear and posting pictures on their social media.

 

[Gun&BowSD]

Hunting is a dying sport. Keep in mind hunting includes coon hunters, squirrel hunters, rabbit hunters and so on as well. It’s not just about deer and elk. I would wager that few people here on this board have hunted any of those 3 that I listed in the last year. hunting smaller game species was a way of life years ago, families survived off of it, not so much now.

Some still do haha. But I hear what you are saying. That being said fur prices have been pretty terrible lately too. For predators and such. A lot of the traveling fur buyers haven’t even come around lately. I think there have been alot of good points made here. Decreasing land/people used to just let people hunt now they want money. New hunters not having the drive to stay with it. It would be interesting to try to get in to hunting as an adult. Feel like you have to buy 5k worth of over head to get in. < Edit- which of course you don’t have to spend to do it. But social media would have you thinking otherwise haha

 

[chocolab]

Hunting is a dying sport. Keep in mind hunting includes coon hunters, squirrel hunters, rabbit hunters and so on as well. It’s not just about deer and elk. I would wager that few people here on this board have hunted any of those 3 that I listed in the last year. hunting smaller game species was a way of life years ago, families survived off of it, not so much now.

while what you say is true, it has absolutely no influence on the future of hunting. decades ago the abundance of big game was a fraction of what it is now, at least in the eastern half of the country so small game hunting is what was available. I'm sorry but in general folks are not interested in hunting coons and squirrels and rabbits now (no shortage of either, and it doesn't matter at all), In the 2020's, both new and old hunters alike want to hunt deer bear turkey elk moose. hunting of those species are not seeing a decline in many jurisdictions. and the money that big game generates is leaps and bounds above any small game and it far and away drives literally every single F&G agency. to be honest, big game is more accessible and acceptable than small game hunting these days.

 

[Rock-o]

According to statistics in western states the numbers are decreasing, 2021 Idaho was down by roughly 10%

Idaho Releases 2021 Hunter Harvest Information

Below is a news release from the Idaho Department of Game and Fish. Despite deer and elk harvest numbers dropping across the board, numbers have [...]

www.rmef.org

I'm sure covid was a factor there and elsewhere.

 

[Macintosh]

I think people are short-sighted to dismiss the value of overall hunter-numbers to conservation and fish and wildlife management funding, and to dismiss the importance of hunting being a mainstream, accepted activity by the majority of the population. The numbers are what they are, there is ZERO debate about actual numbers of hunters--example, here are actual numbers for 2004-2015: https://wildlifeforall.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/HuntingLicCertHistory-2004-2015-1.pdf . Other periods are harder to find except your state data should be easy to find. But overall these numbers in the big picture are pretty easy to get and should not be in question.
since 1960 overall hunter numbers have increased about 9%. The peak of hunter numbers was in the early 1980's and has been declining since, with 2020-2021 being questionably a short-term spike, maybe a change in trend. However, as a % of the overall population, hunter numbers have dropped precipitously, so now hunters only make up about 4.5% of the US population--about HALF of what it was in my lifetime as a hunter.
Example is colorado below from the above link:
2004: 300,570 paid license holders, 548,000 tags sold, generating $52,000,000 in revenue
2015: 281,200 paid license holders, 530,700 tags sold, generating $53,000,000 in revenue
2020: 295,451 paid license holders, 582,956 tags sold, generating $59,006,693 in revenue
(2020 data from this link: https://stacker.com/colorado/see-how-many-registered-hunters-are-colorado )

From the numbers, even in the state I have seen most-talked about here as being "wildly overcrowded", hunter numbers in 2020 are DOWN from 2004, and while they have increased since 2015 it's not back up to the level it was 18 years ago, let alone in the 1980's--and yes, this includes both residents and non-residents. However, based on the number of TAGS sold, which INCREASED, it's still possible (likely?) that at any given time during the hunting season more hunters were in the woods than 18 years ago. I live in Vermont, and this is exactly what our state numbers reflect, that overall numbers are consistently down, but that more individual tags are sold, and that overall hunter effort (time in the woods) is UP. i.e. fewer hunters are out more, making things MORE CROWDED WITHOUT AN INCREASE IN TOTAL HUNTERS. I don't know what is so difficult for people to understand about this...the casual hunters who spent a weekend per year hunting have dropped off, and the hunters left spend more time doing it, more days afield, and that makes things feel more crowded, especially in places where access is more limited than it was in the past.

To me there is zero question about hunter numbers and crowding, tag availability, etc, the numbers dont lie. Not that the numbers aren't important, but they are NOT IN QUESTION. To me the questions are entirely around revenue and politics and how that affects the future of hunting and hunting opportunity. Do you think the revenue generated from license sales, and the associated federal $ that go to the states to match this, are valuable? Based on colorado numbers above, $52million in 2004 equals $71million in 2020 (so there was a gap of about $12million from actual, representing a decline of about 17% from 2004-2020) , so the financial impact on conservation and wildlife management of hunting license revenue DROPPED by a significant amount during this time. Depending on how valuable people think the work of state fish and wildlife dept's is, this could be a pretty big deal, as this is a large% of the budget of each state agency and is also part of the math on how federal$ are given back to the states.
At the same time, the population of colorado went from 4.575million in 2004, to 5.685million in 2020, so as a % of the population those combined res/non-res license holders above represent 6.5% of the population were hunters in 2004, while in 2020 that had dropped to 5.2%. That's a 20% reduction in 16 years. With a growing % of the population (not just in colorado) living in urban and suburban areas and with no contact with hunters or wildlife conservation and management, do people think regulations and seasons will continue to be set based on maximizing hunting opportunity? I dont. I think if people believe hunter numbers declining as a % of the voting population wont limit their opportunity over the next decade or two, they are fooling themselves. It's no wonder states are pushing to change how hunting regulations are set, banning trapping and predator hunting, etc with this in the picture. Also look at regions where population is growing fastest and you'll also see some significant correlation with the intermountain west where this conversation on this website is perhaps most relevant.
So my 2 cents is we should STFU about whether hunter numbers are declining or not, because it is not in question--unless we are looking at only a extremely narrow window of time, overall hunter numbers have declined both in real numbers and especially as a % of the population, nearly everywhere. A few states like MT show very small increases, on the order of 1%, while population has grown tremendously, so would be interesting to see updated consolidated numbers from 2016-present--I wasnt able to find consolidated #'s. Regardless, Instead of debating the numbers that we can check, we should be using that data to talk about what the implications are of the actual numbers both federally and within any given state, and what needs to/should be done about them. If you think having fewer hunters is a good thing, great, then lets talk about whether political clout and conservation funding is important, and deal with that. But unless you are talking specifically about a narrow geography--one state or a small group of states where hunter numbers and inflation-adjusted revenue is actually increasing consistently and you have DATA to show it, don't try to tell me that hunter numbers aren't declining and it's a non-issue.

 

[RyanT26]

Example is colorado below from the above link:
2004: 300,570 paid license holders, 548,000 tags sold, generating $52,000,000 in revenue
2015: 281,200 paid license holders, 530,700 tags sold, generating $53,000,000 in revenue
2020: 295,451 paid license holders, 582,956 tags sold, generating $59,006,693 in revenue
(2020 data from this link: https://stacker.com/colorado/see-how-many-registered-hunters-are-colorado )

So there were 5000 less hunters during the year of Covid. Big whoop
There were 34,000 more tags sold with an additional $7 million coming in. The loss of 5000 hunters during a year when a lot of guys didn’t know if they were going to be able to go at all or even access areas is a silly thing to hold onto.
With those kind of numbers I bet Colorado is hoping to lose another 5k so they can pocket a additional $7 million.

Anyway just because you have a license does not mean you’re going hunting or hunting more then a day or two.