Hunt Talk Radio - Look for it on your favorite Podcast platform

Hunter Number out West - What's the big picture?

Bullshot

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 21, 2018
Messages
1,308
Location
Two days into the rising sun
This is not hot off the press news or anything but I read this in a 2017 article on trends in nationwide hunter numbers and it got me thinking about it all over again:

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been conducting a nationwide survey of hunting and fishing participants every five years since 1955, primarily for the benefit of fish and wildlife agencies across the country as they try to understand participation trends in these activities.

The recent release of the preliminary 2016 survey indicates the gloomy fact that the number of hunters — in a steady decline for many years now — has experienced a sharp drop-off of over 2 million hunters since the last survey in 2011.

Since 1980, the overall nationwide number of hunters has dropped from nearly 18 million to the current level of 10.5 million
."

Based on declines like those mentioned, tag should be easy to come by with millions fewer competing. But for some reason, with all the magazines, TV, internet chatter, increasing fees, low draw odds and preference point creep, one could be forgiven for thinking that we are at the high-water mark. But if all we are doing (with fewer and fewer people) is just chasing fewer and fewer tags each year, we are blind to our ultimate fate. It would seem that for competition for tags to have heated up to the extent that it has over the last 20,30 years, not only are HUNTERS declining, but hunting opportunity must be declining insidiously at a far faster pace. I'd expect some of that, due to development and other causes, but is it really that much worse than it appears on the surface? We bicker a lot about it being a rich mans game -vs- a common man's birthright, but what if it is going to end up just that few people can do it in few places, chasing few animals. I know we are far off from that, right now, but the trends seem really bad if they are what USFWS reports. This is not abstract... they report > 40% drop in participation just within less than my lifetime!

Are there any big-picture guys reading this that can put this into context insofar as how it relates to western states big game hunting and put some relevant numbers to these trends? For example, how many deer tags/ elk tags did, for example, Wyoming, or Colorado have over the past couple decades, compared between then and now?
 
Not claiming to be s big picture guy, but it seems there are too many variables in this equation to determine how we ended up where we are today. Mule deer have declined drastically across the west. Whitetails and elk have done the opposite. Management has shifted towards growing more older animals for both societal and biological reasons. Access to private land in many areas has deminished, concentrating hunters on public land. I don’t have numbers, but I bet a higher proportion of hunters are hunting out of state than 30 years ago.
 
I’d toss that article in the trash; usfw own reports show hunting licenses increasing nation wide. 15,620,578 for 2018.
 
It’s easier now than ever for a person to hunt out of state for several reasons . Travel is easier with better vehicles and roads , success rates are probably up especially for archery hunters due to technological advances in equipment. I could go on and on .
 
The populations of Utah and Colorado have doubled since 1980 while Wyoming’s population has only increase by 23%. I couldn’t find numbers for hunters in CO in 1980, but imagine there are more resident hunters here now, even though we are a smaller percentage of the total population.
 
That number is misleading... I bought licenses in 7 states last year. I'm sure plenty of others did as well.

In recent years, I have bought licenses in AZ, ID, WA, CO, OR, NV, MT, NM and UT. $100s spent per year and often 6 or more licenses are never hunted that year. One hunter. 9 licenses. Not 9 big game hunters. Not one hunter who hunted in 9 states. In upcoming years, I will soon buy a lifetime hunting license in one state and that is it for me but then I am an old guy who recalls what it was like before all the increases and habitat licenses and conservation permits and various service fees and mandatory licenses were as common or expensive.

The numbers are hard to nail down but the reality is not. Big game hunters out West are now older on average than 30 years ago and falling in both total number and percentage of the population.
 
I think BrentD's number were a joke, but the sentiment is not, as LopeHunter illustrated above.
 
Wyoming data from graphs in a whitepaper compiled by WGFD. First 1980 numbers then 2014

Total Number of MD hunters; 130K - 50K

Total number of WT hunters; 20K - 22K

Total number of Pronghorn hunters; 55K - 47K

Total number of Moose hunters; 1600 - 450

Total number of Sheep hunters; 400 - 200

Total number of Elk hunters; 80K - 60K

Total number of NR elk licenses; 5900 - 13500
 
Statewide elk population; 65K - 110K

Statewide elk harvest; 17K - 26K

Not much to cheer about unless you are an elk hunter. Particularly, a nonresident elk hunter.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I think BrentD's number were a joke, but the sentiment is not, as LopeHunter illustrated above.

Exactly. My apologies if this was not obvious. I have no idea what the real numbers might be. However, from the posts here, they seem like they might be somewhat similar to the distribution of firearms in the USA (and maybe dollars as well). That is the vast majority are owned by a small percentage of the total population.
 
Statewide elk population; 65K - 110K

Statewide elk harvest; 17K - 26K

Not much to cheer about unless you are an elk hunter. Particularly, a nonresident elk hunter.

Yes! That's the kind of perspective I was looking for.

I AM certainly glad to be able to cheer the elk population. Not sure I can bring myself to cheer the fact of being a NR with no elk of my "own"! And I'm not real encouraged by the sweeping declines in other species opportunities. Would seem unlikely that the good-old-days would ever return for those. It makes me also appreciate the opportunity that whitetails afford most people too. Can you imagine the lost big-game opportunities if they were having trouble like muleys or antelope?
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
110,817
Messages
1,935,490
Members
34,889
Latest member
jahmes143
Back
Top