Totally disagree. Self promoting celebrity hunters like Newberg, Rinella and the hunting industry marketing machines have had a direct impact on the exploding interest in western-state hunting. Best example is OTC Arizona Deer Tags - which have been the subject of multiple videos, podcasts, photoshoots, etc. This saw a corresponding increase in tag sales, increased hunting pressure, overcrowding and this year, a significant reduction in Arizona deer tags being offered.
The increased interest driven by this marketing has created two social-media driven hunting businesses - mapping services like onx and tag applying strategy companies like gohunt. In fact, we call what happened with AZ deer tags the "gohunt effect."
Western state resident hunters are responding. Idaho recently put limits on OTC elk tags in specific hunt areas because of exploding NR sales and subsequent overcrowding. Wyoming resident hunters are pushing for 90/10, and soon Colorado hunters are waking up and wondering why they are giving 30%+ of their elk tags to NR hunters every year. All the western states have increase or are increasing NR tag prices.
Hunting industry media and marketing is designed to increase audience size then monetize it through product sales, subscriptions and memberships. It's worked really well, but a backlash has started and it's growing momentum. Mountain Pursuit is leading on the nonprofit side, and The Hunt Domain podcast and Making Hunting Great Again instagram accounts are pointing out how silly, fake, and politically damaging the hunting social media "content" machine has become.
