The second most used excuse by hunters for their cruel
sport is economics.
The contribution of hunters to our economy.
No one denies the impact hunters have. With some 14
million hunters in the country their economic impact is not to be
ignored. But let�s look at it objectively and see if this really is the
boon that the hunters claim.
Hunters spend billions of dollars annually to pursue and
kill game. According to the Wall Street Journal, more money is spent by
hunters than by golfers and football players combined. The number of
armed persons taking to the woods and fields each year exceeds the
number of the world�s top three armies combined. Hunters not only spend
money on licenses, firearms, ammunition and archery tackle, but on
travel accommodations, meals, accessories, clothes and vehicles. Indeed,
hunting is not a cheap pastime.
The state of Wisconsin, one of the top 5 states for deer
hunting, estimates that $750 is spent for every deer killed by hunters.
A big deer will yield about 90 lb. of edible meat, so venison ranks
right up there as one of the most expensive ways to eat. Quail has been
estimated to cost up to $10 per OUNCE!!!!!
When I was hunting, it was not unusual for me to spend
$3000-5000 per year on hunting and the associated travel and
accommodation expenses. And I was certainly not one of the more
extravagant hunters.
So what happens if we end hunting? Will we be cast into
a great depression? Will the world economy collapse as we know it? Not
at all.
The money spent by hunters is discretionary income
spending. The same
money all of us spend to one degree or another. This is the same money
used to go to the movies, eat out at restaurants, buy luxuries for our
homes or take a vacation. It is the power windows in our cars, the
second VCR in the den, and the self propelled lawn mower.
Take away hunting, and the hunters will spend their
money elsewhere. Unless they choose to burn the money they spent on
hunting, the money will not disappear from the economy but be spent
elsewhere. Though I spent thousands each year hunting, and no longer do
so, I have no more loose change than I ever did. The money is still
there and is still being spent. And though my former outfitter in
Montana may notice the difference, so does the local feed store
proprietor who sells me food for wild animals and straw for the
enclosures at SHARK�s wildlife rehab center. The money is still
there!!!!!
Hunters will claim that rural areas will be devastated.
Not so. A portion of that money will be used to buy food that was
previously provided by hunting (or so we are told) and that money will
go directly to the rural economies in their main line of business. The
hunters could still spend money in rural areas for camping, hiking, and
other rural outdoor activities........no one is suggesting they stop
that.
And the injection of funds formerly spent on hunting
into other areas of the
economy would allow others to enjoy these outdoor activities without
killing even if the hunters themselves don�t.
Absent the hunter�s pressure for more animals to shoot
(targets), game
departments will resort to natural forms of animal population control
and the overpopulation of deer caused by hunters will gradually
disappear. The resulting reduction in crop damage will make up for the
loss of funds from hunters, very little of which went to individual
farmers anyway.
Companies that sell hunting accessories also make other
sporting equipment and can take up the slack with increased sales of
non-hunting equipment. Even firearms companies can promote target
shooting and sell their firearms to non-hunters. Less than 20% of
firearms owners are hunters at any rate.
Faced with this argument, hunters will tell you that
they DON�T spend all that much on hunting. That hunting is a cheap way
to get food. OK, but then they cannot have the economic impact they
claim and would actually be a drain on rural economies by providing
themselves with their own food, rather than buying the produce of
farmers. As usual, when faced with logical arguments the hunters try to
have it both ways.
Hunting is not essential to wildlife management, nor is
it essential to our
economy. These are smokescreens put up to confuse the non-hunter as to
the real intentions of hunters.
The author is a former hunter with 33 years of hunting
experience in N. America for big game and small. The author is a
certified hunter education instructor in 4 states, and now devotes his
time to helping animals, and exposing the myths of hunters.
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