Is the future of hunting all doom and gloom?

[cck311]

I can't help but feel like it is. If you're an eastern hunter many of your potential hunting grounds are bought up and leased out to the biggest bidder. Out west, tag demand is outpacing supply rapidly. Our most common big game animal in the west (the mule deer) is just kinda barely hanging on. Each year we see more and more development and an increase of 75 mph murder machines all over every highway in the west turning them into meat crayons. The political winds are shifting and a lot of people who aren't friendly to hunting are getting into positions where they can make policy. Outfitted hunts are getting more and more out of the price range of average Joes. I can't really think of any silver linings that will improve things for hunters as we go into the future. Can you? How much longer do you imagine yourself having some semblance of quality hunting? Do you see anything that gives you hope for the future of hunting?

 

[Tod osier]

I can't help but feel like it is. If you're an eastern hunter many of your potential hunting grounds are bought up and leased out to the biggest bidder. Out west, tag demand is outpacing supply rapidly. Our most common big game animal in the west (the mule deer) is just kinda barely hanging on. Each year we see more and more development and an increase of 75 mph murder machines all over every highway in the west turning them into meat crayons. The political winds are shifting and a lot of people who aren't friendly to hunting are getting into positions where they can make policy. Outfitted hunts are getting more and more out of the price range of average Joes. I can't really think of any silver linings that will improve things for hunters as we go into the future. Can you? How much longer do you imagine yourself having some semblance of quality hunting? Do you see anything that gives you hope for the future of hunting?

It isn't going to get better, but it will be around for a while and quality will be mixed. For those who are innovative, there will be opportunities - as there always are. I haven't found something that I don't like to hunt (though my passion definitely lies in certain areas), so I'm lucky and I will be able to shift as things change.

I decided to move to a state for my personal end game to focus on big game opportunity, since that is most limiting, but we will see issues with waterfowl and upland becoming limiting as well (already has, but isn't as widespread).

Not saying this is the case for the OP, but things always seem doom and gloom if you don't take the opportunities you have and live it up...

 

[MuleyFever]

I have been saying that I am really glad I am closer to the end of my hunting days than the beginning. People just getting into hunting have a very uncertain future in terms of opportunity. While there will absolutely be hunting opportunities for quite a while the opportunities will continue to dwindle away. Just in the last 10 years the reduction in buck tags and antlerless tags here in UT has been significant in my hunting area.

 

[WoodBow]

I don't see a scenario where I am not avidly hunting until I am dead. I am 35. But I am concerned for my kids and for my kids kids.

I am not all doom and gloom. Texas leasing has definitely got more expensive. But i still manage to acquire random permission properties for free. Sometimes they are small properties but I still manage to really enjoy them and take deer.

The western stuff we do has gotten a lot harder to draw as a non resident. However one place we hunt has actually gotten easier to draw. You just have to roll with the punches and be open to new possibilities.

Realistically I still have way more hunts i want to do, and can do, than I have time for each year.

 

[Szwampdonkey]

Yes, it’s doom and gloom for the future of hunting. It will only get worse not better as the human population increases with an ever higher percentage of those humans being strictly indoor dogs. Those indoor dogs will be either indifferent or downright against hunting and they will vote according. Urban areas already control the voting in just about every state. My son will hunt i seriously doubt his children will.

The best days are absolutely behind us.

 

[2muchhp]

Eventually- yes

 

[sndmn11]

Out west, tag demand is outpacing supply rapidly.

Do you see anything that gives you hope for the future of hunting?

I think you answered your own question in your first sentence. Hunting will be fine because the demand is there. With the USA population stabilizing and then dropping, it will be well after anyone progeny remembers my name that they have issues hunting (unrelated to firearm laws).

 

[swNEhunter]

Depends on how you look at it. The glory days are definitely behind us in terms of having a mountain to yourself with big unpressured animals running around. But I would argue we are also living in the glory days right now where a guy can never have set foot in the west in his life and travel to a western state and have a good chance of finding animals with the help of technology.

Unfortunately, in terms of the future, I'm afraid it doesn't look great with the growing non-hunting population, increased tag applications, and decreased tags. Private land could start to look scarce here soon too once all of the billionaires get into a competition buying up the limited resource that is land.

 

[TheHammer]

Love him or hate him.. Newberg on a more recent podcast goes into the details of current judicial procedures certain outdoor groups and individuals are currently undertaking to grant more access to state lands for recreational use. Shined light on some hope for the future. With precedent already set, in Montana.

 

[elkyinzer]

Casual hunting is dying fast with easy quality access and cost being the primary factors. This is the cause of steep quantitative declines that the RRR alarmists cite. That will level out relatively soon. There really aren't a lot of casual hunters left once the boomers die off.

Hardcore hunters seem to be more prolific than ever. It's a little bit of an identity/visibility thing with the internet, and a little bit a modern humanity thing with people having more free time and expendable income than ever in history. I'm not really sure where this segment goes. I'm still trying to figure out if a lot of the newer hardcore hunters are motivated externally or internally.

 

[Rich M]

I don't see a lot of positives on the long haul.

Personally preparing myself for less hunting in the future. Not from lack of desire but from a definite lack of opportunity. I can have more opportunity if I'm willing to pay and travel but really don't want to.

Miss the days of getting out of work and going hunting, I don't live in an area where that is easily done anymore.

 

[william schmaltz]

No. For the people willing to sacrifice and live in what other consider less than ideal places, hunting is great and the future is good. Move your family to a rural Midwest community and get involved in that community and church. I can almost promise you that you'll have thousands of acres opened up to you within a few years. You kids will be able hunt every single day after school if they choose. There are plenty of states that are realizing that people who put up with living that chosen lifestyle deserve to be taken care of (in terms of tag allocation). Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakota's are just a few for example. People are not willing to leave their well-paying urban jobs in warm climates to have what folks in rural/cold America have available and they just choose to have a pitty party and complain instead of making the change themselves. If you're not willing to put up with a little cold weather, live in a rural area, take a paycut, not live next door to grandma and grandpa for the free childcare, etc; then ya, bring your checkbook, things are looking tight. But for the adventurous willing to sacrifice and prioritize, opportunity abounds.

Sure, several different animal populations are down. Urban sprawl is very real. And habitat destruction from agriculture is what I consider the biggest threat in most of the country. Things are hardly ever as good as they were 30 years ago, but things can still be good. If people go through life just wishing for the good old days and not taking advantage of today's opportunity, they have a long road ahead across the board of life.

 

[Alder_]

If people learned how to keep their mouth shut.
Stopped posting scenic pictures.
Stopped giving Unit specific info out.
Stopped having to gloat on the gram.

Then it isn't, but if it continues the way it is. Absolutely doom and gloom.

 

[Huntindog45]

Yes.... everyone please quit now, sell me your gear for pennies on the dollar, take up golf. Thank you

 

[Fowl Play]

Doom and gloom. No. But harder for every successive generation to partake in as easily or at the quality their father was able to. Yes. But this is true for almost everything in life. Beginning around the 1980s.

 

[long hunter]

It will eventually become like the European countries, the weapons your allowed to have will be limited and very regulated, the animals your allowed to hunt will be limited to the very rich as well as the areas you hunt. Do some re-search on the European regs and laws governing hunters and you can see where this is going to land.

 

[WCB]

Sure, several different animal populations are down. Urban sprawl is very real. And habitat destruction from agriculture is what I consider the biggest threat in most of the country. Things are hardly ever as good as they were 30 years ago, but things can still be good. If people go through life just wishing for the good old days and not taking advantage of today's opportunity, they have a long road ahead across the board of life.

I'm not seeing habitat from agriculture as a main issue. Habitat destruction due to urban sprawl and general development is I would say THE main issue. In the Midwest I see less agriculture and more subdivisions, less agriculture and more solar farms popping up though many small maybe 3-5 acres there are some many times more than that. Go out west to MT, ID, WY. Less working ranches and hay/alfalfa fields and grasslands but more ranchettes and wind farms many on wintering or breeding grounds. Can't remember the last time I drove by what used to be grassland or timber stand and see new ag fields. Valleys in MT that there used to be 5 or 6 ranches in now have hundreds of homes.

In fact from in the last 20years the U.S. has lost something like 50million acres of farm land. Between 2021 and 2022 alone the U.S. lost 1.9million acres.

 

[t_carlson]

It will eventually become like the European countries, the weapons your allowed to have will be limited and very regulated, the animals your allowed to hunt will be limited to the very rich as well as the areas you hunt. Do some re-search on the European regs and laws governing hunters and you can see where this is going to land.

If it gets to that point, you'll be more worried about the number tattooed on your arm than hunting.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

I can't help but think this "feeling" of doom and gloom about hunting viability has been around since our paleo ancestors were forced to adapt to increased hunting pressure, hunter rivalry, no-hunting boundaries imposed by neighboring rulers, decreased animal densities, climate concerns, access barriers, etc.

Those that thrived adapted by migrating away from the problem areas. Those that didn't migrate chose to stay and worry.

We are a self-fulfilling species that is reaching a maximum holding capacity, and most of our stressors are self-imposed.

There is no warm and fuzzy answer to this problem. Have to adapt to the world we've shaped.

 

[mtnbiker208]

Not at all.