Posted on 02/03/2020 6:45:21 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
snip: But today, that symbiosis is off kilter: Americans interest in hunting is on the decline, cutting into funding for conservation, which stems largely from hunting licenses, permits and taxes on firearms, bows and other equipment.
Even as more people are engaging in outdoor activities, hunting license sales have fallen from a peak of about 17 million in the early 80s to 15 million last year, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data. The agencys 2016 survey suggested a steeper decline to 11.5 million Americans who say they hunt, down more than 2 million from five years earlier.
The downward trends are clear, said Samantha Pedder of the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports, which works to increase the diversity of hunters.
The resulting financial shortfall is hitting many state wildlife agencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Our Kmarts went out of business, but my wife still buys patterns and bolts of fabric at Walmart. She is a fantastic seamstress and makes up her own patterns much of the time.
We do have more deer in our neighborhood than we did in the 80s. In our case there are reasons for that somewhat unrelated to hunting. The giant park we live near used to feed deer to their lions, tigers, bears, and other preditors in their zoo. The park board was taken over by idiots who ended this common sense practice and some of the deer now are venturing into surrounding areas.
But the deer we have around here are more community pets than wild animals. I am a little surprised that their population hasn't increased much in the last ten years. Yesterday I walked through a group of them to get to a house that is about a block away. If you were really hungry... you could lure one of the more trusting animals into your garage and club it.
The guy who is helping me cut down some tall firs on the back of our property is going to mill the wood with his cousin's portable saw mill. He and his brother are going to build a “meat house” out of the wood, so that they have a better place to hang and age meat from cattle, deer and elk.I
Depending on where you live the observations in this article may or may not seem valid. Hunting permits falling from 17 to 15 million since the eighties seems almost like a joke compared to the demographics in the same period. During that time period while the population in this country increased by nearly 50%, the number of home grown white folks has gone down and gotten older and fatter. That is probably the biggest reason for the approximately ten percent decrease in hunting licenses. Issues with today's youth are troubling, but there are still a lot of kids like my grandson who graduated last year who love to hunt. And thank god for those kids. But you find them mostly outside of the big cities.
We had a shooting club at my high school as well.
H’mong?
We have a dog.
Also, in the summer in the garden we have motion activated lights, flashing red predator eye LEDs, holographic scare tape, coyote urine granules, rotten egg spray, peppermint spray and cayenne pepper powder (Purchased in bulk from Amazon or Costco. Based on the comments just about everyone seems to use it in their gardens, not for cooking.) We live in a part of town sandwiched between two major highways and Darwin used to take care of things. Unfortunately, it looks like the deer have gotten smarter, or natural selection has selected for ones who now avoid the highways. The houses are too close together to allow shooting the deer with anything but a Super Soaker (and that's probably illegal, too, I just haven't looked it up.) Havahart needs to make deer-size traps.
Oregon keeps raising fees for hunting and fishing to make up for shortfalls. When asked if that didn't further decrease participation, one official said that it did, and they raised it a little more to account for the loss. The whole State works like that.
Well my brother is doing his part. Got the limit on bow, musket and shot gun season.
I don’t know of poison being used. Wild hogs are very smart and they are very prolific. 4 litters a year?
Huge problem.
We have built many traps. Still have 4 in place, have not been set in a while. You must check them daily. Hogs die quickly away from water and in the heat. They are smelly mess when dead.
The roads here are littered with their carcasses. Marker to damaged autos.
Maybe people are not buying licenses is all?-)
I have a neighbor whose adult child was brought here from SoCal as a child. His dad didn’t hunt, and neither does he. About 20 years ago, he was out in the driveway, washing his truck. There was a crew up here paving, kinda waiting for their lunch hour to end, and someone asked if he was getting it ready for hunting season. He said “No. I don’t hunt.” About six different conversations stopped instantly, and they looked at him like he said he wore dresses. Hilarious! He didn’t even notice.
Too many regs. & $$ including endless special tag$ for
different species + education classes too..
When i was a kid in the 70s, One license for
all huntin in my state ( except ducks requiring a Fed stamp).
That one simple license was good to go on everything from summer to summer (right before dove season).
The regs consisted of a single fold-out brochure
prolly around a 11x17” printed both sides. Now -they are
small books. The regs mainly addressed
daily limits by species & county. that’s close enough..
Yes, hazing the polar bears with a helicoptor, then shooting the mama bear from the ground, and the camera then pans to two terrorized baby bears. It was actually a dart gun. You can see the dart if you look closely when he fires the gun.
In Maryland (Zone B) you can get 35 per year:
ARCHERY 15
MUZZLELOADER 10
FIREARMS 10
Opening day around here used to sound like a battlefield. You would actually worry about being hit with a stray slug while driving your car.
Now, silent. Just another day.
“Of course, no one points out the .223 round is a varmint round and not really suitable for larger game.”
Which is why I have my 6.8SPC
Neighbor of mine has a private hunting preserve, he charges about $6,000 per person per hunt. Nothing exotic, just deer. You have three days to hunt, you may use any caliber of rifle you want, you will be shooting from a tree stand and once you get your deer it is over.
There is a waiting list.
That is the first time anyone I know has seen that buck. He was not around during hunting season. In fact, during hunting season we never saw any deer. I am not sure where they went.
Here in SW Arkansas the wild hogs have pushed just about everything out smaller than themselves. Now they are working on displacing the deer.
Yes it is a plague.
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