Last night I found an article concerning the economy and how it relates to hunting licenses sold. One would think that in this tough economic times that hunting numbers would suffer. Apparently that is not the case.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, a group studied all 50 states and found that the number of hunting licenses sold actually went up during economic down turns. Mark Duda the Executive Director of Responsive Management an outdoor company out of Virginia that did the survey, said that there wasn’t an increase in all 50 states, but it is more of a trend.
What I found interesting was that they found that 22% of the hunting community are people who are linked to the home building or construction market. People such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, roofers, brick masons, etc… He said that no single industry accounts for more hunters than this one. With that being said, we can see that this is the industry that has been hit the hardest in the last couple of years. One would think that this would drop hunting license sales. According to their study, this group of people now has more time to spend in the woods. It also provides an escape from the day to day pressures of what is going on in the economy.
Their study showed that one of the main reasons people didn’t get out to hunt was lack of time, so with the job losses people naturally have more time to hunt. People do have more time to get out and hunt without a job, but one thing that this survey showed was a down turn in out of state or non-resident hunting licenses being sold. This goes to show that people might be getting out in the woods more, but they are not traveling to do so.
What I didn’t like about this article, was they showed no hard numbers, it was all generalizations with no numbered facts to back up their study. But I can see this happening, it will be interesting to see the numbers for this deer season here in Michigan especially since the CWD baiting ban has be instituted. I for one haven’t spent as much time in the woods as I would have liked, but there is still a lot of season left. We will have to wait and see if there is more orange in the woods this season due to the job losses, if so those deer better get ready.
