The sport of hunting is declining

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dd61999

Joined
Sep 12, 2007
Messages
692
You see many articles and reasons for this.

But you no one mentions the hassle of getting a hunting license

I know plenty that would love to try it but do not want to spend two full days taking a hunting course. Life is to busy. On top of that if they want to go bow hunting it requires more days in a class, duck hunting, even more classroom time. Plus the availability of classes are limited. It is just not worth the effort for them for just a quick 1-2 day hunting trip.

I think the courses are good but should it be more complicated than a drivers license?
 
I think the courses are good, but only 12 hours is required in my state for all hunting licenses, tags, etc. One course fits all. I took my first course when I was twelve (over 30 years ago). Even though hunting was a tradition handed down from me, I still learned some valuable safety lessons. Now I'm a guide, and I have plenty of clients who just "decided" to take up hunting. No family or other mentor introduction to the sport. I'm glad they're taking it up instead of protesting it. I have a slight comfort that they took the course, passed the test, and at least understood some of the basic safety concepts taught. If they didn't, I think most guides wouldn't want to have rookies around them with firearms. Hopefully people don't let the license course deter them from a lifetime of participating in the best sport on Earth. It's a small price to pay.
 
i got my hunter number in grade 8 high school, as well as 4 credits so i don't remember it being so difficult. however, hunting is what fed our family since i can remember so growing up around it probably had its influence too. i think identifying the waterfowl was the hardest part, the rest seemed to be common sense.
 
dd61999, my father had some insights on this back a few years ago (80's). My childhood was in the late 50's & early 60's. I started "hunting" when I was 9 years old. That is, I started carrying an UNLOADED .410 ga. shotgun for the next three years. The only present I received for my 12th birthday was a single .410ga. cartridge. I guess I had "passed the 3 year long test" . . . :thumbup:
Dad said part of the decline was the increase of single parent households (no father figure around 24/7). Even if it wasn't hunting season, dad & I would still go groundhog hunting, target shooting, etc. & I was allowed to shoot his .22cal. pistol, but still had to carry that damn UNLOADED 410 . . . :) That meant I was around firearms almost 24/7 for my younger years being taught by my dad, uncle, & grandfather. He also said to look at how much land was available in that era vs. today. The road our farm was on was a road 3.8 miles long & off a main highway. There were only two farms on that road, ours, & Mr. M------. His farm was 1.7 miles away, & there was plenty of cornfields & woods to hunt in. That same acreage now has a minimum of 80 to 90 homes scattered along it, along with 2 sub-divisions. So much for pheasant & rabbit habitat . . .
His last observation was creating income for the government (PLEASE do not start a governmental debate, this was only one's man observation . . :) ).
The income from license's & other fees just weren't enough to sustain the operation of the DNR for most states. You can either raise taxes & catch a hailstorm from the public, or be creative & come up with other ways. This made sense, but if you look back on the increase of single parent households, how else would some of the younger generation who grew up in the cities & suburbs learn about firearms vs. children like myself who grew up on a farm with their nearest neighbor almost 2 miles down the road? The last one could be right either way.
Excellent question, I hope there are a lot of replies to this, would be interested to see the different opinions from other people. Hope you get the answers you are looking for.
Be safe.
 
Hunting has been a declining activity in the US for nearly a century. Aside from the growing regulatory hurdles and costs, the real problem is population growth and land development. There isn't enough terrain or wildlife, and what used to be done in ones backyard is now usually a very expensive, time consuming, and increasingly artificial (domestically raised animals) activity. Also, since it has been getting harder to do, it has distanced itself from the original objective of producing food and food by-products; we now have a stable food supply that no longer requires hunting. Which raises a whole negative social connotation about those who hunt merely for the pleasure/sport of the kill.

n2s
 
One thing , it is harder to find private land to hunt on then it use to be. A lot of landowners rent their land for hunting .Then, a lot of landowners dont want irresponsible and inconsiderate people on their land. Who can blame them. People come onto your property , do not obey game laws, shoot at anything and everything alive, leave their trash behind...

Im straying off subject a bit here,but the point is good hunting spots are getting harder to find.
 
The course is silly if you grow up around hunting and 'on the land', but in NJ, let me tell you that I am GLAD for the course. Generally speaking, people here learn about hunting from the movies....shotgun season here is frightening.

I watched guys on a regular basis pull shotguns with closed breeches out of their cars by the handles, fingers in the trigger housing...then sling them over their shoulders and proceed to spin around talking to people...never checking if they were loaded. It's a wonder more people aren't killed...and all of them had to have the safety course.

Also, it's very popular around here to not actually hunt but to go shooting guns. Guys will mass up banging on sticks and whooping and hollering to scare deer out into an open field where another guy shoots them. They rotate who gets to fish in the barrel next. What happened to pre-season stalking, looking for rubs and scrapes and watching the activity? Some actually hunt here, but a lot don't.

The real reason hunting is declining in this area is land access. Unless you own it, there's very little you can get access to. The restrictions on the public lands is just crazy with exclusion zones in some of the areas leaving ridiculously narrow strips where you can actually hunt. It's a literal maze to figure out where exactly via the postings, you are allowed to hunt. The private land owners rarely consent as too many people here are anti-hunting in general.

What do we get? Overrun with deer.
 
I read some fish and game literature a couple of years ago that stated that hunting licenses being sold in the U.S. to males each year was decreasing, but the number of hunting licenses being sold to females was actually increasing. Obviously there are many more male hunters than female, so overall it is declining. I just thought this was an interesting statistic. I believe there are many reasons for the decline, and the stigma associated with guns and "killing things" plays a big part unfortunately. I think many people are ignorant to what guns and hunting are all about, therefore, the tradition is not being passed on as much as it should be.
 
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dipbait said:
One thing , it is harder to find private land to hunt on then it use to be. A lot of landowners rent their land for hunting .Then, a lot of landowners dont want irresponsible and inconsiderate people on their land. Who can blame them. People come onto your property , do not obey game laws, shoot at anything and everything alive, leave their trash behind...

Im straying off subject a bit here,but the point is good hunting spots are getting harder to find.
Click to expand...

I agree, it is getting nearly impossible to find any land to hunt on. People simply do not want you on their property. They will lease rights to a controlled few they trust and that is it. I have seen all the bad things you touched on and more, trash dumped, things broken and shot to pieces, fences wrecked, vehicle ruts everywhere, etc. I am fortunate enough right now to be on ten acres of land that I can small game hunt on. Otherwise, it's a minimum of 36 miles to drive to get to Bankhead Forest. Too costly for us in the "lower class" of income who can barely afford ammunition to hunt with much less several gallons of gas to get there and most assuredly cannot and never will be able to afford to enter any hunting clubs to get access to other properties. I used to have access to literally thousands of acres of land that belonged to tree timber companies. When the property tax laws changed here in Alabama, these companies dropped selling cheap permits to individuals. Most of them immediately clear cut their lands and sold off to developers. What's left is leased to hunting clubs who can pay a chunck of bucks and provide liability insurance to their restricted memberages.

Hence, nowhere to go, no licenses selling. Plus, the younger generation is all caught up in Facebook, Myspace, text messaging, cell phones, computers, etc, and interest in the outdoors in general is waning.
 
Hunting takes time and effort. To do it correctly, you will spend time planning, scouting, sitting and waiting, perhaps spotting and stalking. If you are fortunate enough to take game, you will spend time tracking, perhaps dragging, perhaps tagging, cleaning, skinning, processing and caring for the meat.

If you can't take time for the safety courses, then you shouldn't be hunting. It's not that big a deal and you may just learn something.

---

Beckerhead #42
 
dd61999 said:
You see many articles and reasons for this.

But you no one mentions the hassle of getting a hunting license

I know plenty that would love to try it but do not want to spend two full days taking a hunting course. Life is to busy. On top of that if they want to go bow hunting it requires more days in a class, duck hunting, even more classroom time. Plus the availability of classes are limited. It is just not worth the effort for them for just a quick 1-2 day hunting trip.

I think the courses are good but should it be more complicated than a drivers license?
Click to expand...

Where do you live? If I remember right, I had 20-30 hrs of drivers ed. before I could get a drivers license. Here in WI, 10 yr olds are allowed to hunt, without hunters safety, as long as the parent and child only have the one gun between them. IF they like hunting, they are required to take the class by 12 yrs old to hunt "alone" with their own gun. "I think it is set up to be like JUST1MORs' dad did years ago!! No extra courses for waterfowl either. Boaters safety and snowmobile safety before driving age, but thats all. And the classes are worth it. Someone needs to teach people how to act around firearms, and not everyone is a "teacher" ;)
 
be thankful you're not in Australia.

we're heavily restricted on what we can legally hunt (eg: no natives, ferals only).

some ferals, for reasons that escape me, have "seasons", like deer.

if you're in the massive minority who live in teh bush, like me, hunting is seen as a perfectly acceptable pasttime.

say you're a bowhunter to 99.9% of citydwellers and they'll recoil in horror at the thought.

mention your main target is feral cats, foxes and pigs and they'll start on the "inhumane and cruel"......
 
try getting a license in Europe, it's many very extensive courses, w/ very rigid testing after each course

I think we could learn a thing or two from them

as mentioned we are losing access to private lands at an alarming rate, part of this falls directly on the hunter's shoulders- not closing gates, driving muddy roads, leaving litter, wounding game, not following game laws, etc- basically poor ethics

the other alarming trend I'm seeing is an increase in commercial hunting activities- outfitting, leasing, etc- if this trend continues it will eventually be a sport for the wealthy

the last trend I'm seeing is that we are not doing a very good job recruiting young folks into this sport- this again falls on our shoulders to a large degree. we all need to do more to in the realm of mentoring young folks, too many kids are getting farther and farther away from knowing what the great outdoors has to offer- it behooves us all to try and buck this trend
 
For me it's the cost and the logistics. I have to pay $50 for the hunting license, roughly $20 or $30 for a deer permit plus the same for a turkey permit, then find a place to actually hunt.

Some years I do fork it out but often (and sadly) I can get a lot more meat for my $100 from the grocery store.
 
Lack of available land, video games, and parents who don't hunt are the main culprits.
 
i think that some of the hunting shows are not helping the sport/lifestyle. where you see a person take a shot, either rifle or bow and all you hear is great shot. awesome, everybody high fiving, now they took the shot mid afternoon, and then hours later there all around the game, in the dark, congradulating themselves. I'm sorry, if it was a great shot, what took so long to find the animal. i'm not saying that having to track an animal isn't a reality sometimes, but i wouldn't call it a great hot if i have to track one.
 
^hunting shows are definitely contributing to the decline- everything is about numbers- what's that buck score?, got a limit of quail yet?, how many yards was that shot?

what about having fun with family or friends, what about enjoying a day outdoors, what about being thankful for the meat that you were just blessed with

I can't even watch them :(
 
Overall yes I'd say I agree its declining but in some areas it still thrives and is even a part of life that puts meat on the table. There are not as many that know the skill today as when I was young though thats for sure. I befriended my old history teacher from high school on Facebook a couple years ago. He and I share quite a bit now and then and one tidbit of information that I found rather refreshing which he shared with me on facebook is this. In my hometown in West Virginia where I grew up and went to school the school still to this day closes for the first week of deer season every year. Not all is lost. :thumbup: Oh and its not for safety reasons either. It makes sense actually. None of the teachers would be in anyways as they'd all be out in tree stands with the rest of the community! :D

STR
 
For all those you are worried about passing on the Hunting Heritage, I encourage you to join your local club and become a Sportsman Education instructor. NY is fairly restrictive with it's Junior Hunters compared to many other places in the US and it is still not that bad.

In addition to the traditional 2-3 day (12 hours total usually) course, there is also an online option. Sign up for the course, complete the online material, and then attend a 1 day (5-6 hrs) of hands-on and practical training.

As educators we spend the vast majority of our time on proper firearm handling and shooting safety. We have very little time left for actual game animal knowledge or hunting skills.

Loss of hunting land, increasing time constraints, single parent homes, electronic devices, and changing public perception have all played a role in hunting's decline. It is up to every one of us to combat that. TAKE A KID OUTDOORS TODAY.
 
Took my wife and my nextdoor neighbors kid to a hunters safety course this year. My father is an instructor and I have been before as well. They just changed the course and I must say some of the questions on the test were not covered clearly in the course. Two questions my wife pointed out were flat out not what the instructors said. She passed but the little boy did not. He has gone squirrel hunting and deer hunting (only to watch) and seemed like he had a firm grasp.

He is motivated to go take the test again, however what of other kids who arent as "into hunting" as him? Many likely will not. I am not saying that this is the same for every state but MD definatley changed the test and not for the better.

I am lucky, my family and I have land in several state's to which I can hunt on and I know lots of decent public land and some private. However a quick search on Craigslist using "hunting" and you'll see many hunters throwing themselves out there to anyone who will let them hunt on there land. Its depressing to want to hunt but not have anywhere to go.

On the other hand if you buy your way onto land it can be very expensive and thats just local hunts here on the Eastern shore. The ones out west are down right amazingly expensive (I have been on them as its really the only game unless you know public land out there).

I believe taking kids outdoors like Eyegor stated is what we have to do. I talk hunting and go hunting with my neighbors son (single mom) and I dont know who else he'd go with if it werent for me. If we want to keep hunting we have to keep our numbers and promote it more than just killing, my wife realized its very relaxing and just an experience to be found no where else. But if I hadnt sold that side of it and just made it about killing the biggest buck...she may never have gone. Now she looks forward to it.
 
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