Growing up, I constantly heard that hunter numbers are declining. We have never had less hunters. Hunters are aging out and no new young hunters are joining in.
As an adult, many years later, it has never been harder to draw tags, find access, and avoid running into others on public land.
Also, now as an adult, I hear both things being repeated constantly. "We don't have enough hunters"; "We have too many hunters".
I think both things are sort of true and sort of false.
By percentages, they allegedly started tracking it in the 1960s and 7.7% of the population hunted. Which is about 14 million people (a bit under really at 13.86m)
Now about 5% of the population hunts. Which sounds like a drop in hunters, but since the population is drastically higher it is more individuals hunting. It comes out to 17.1 million people hunting.
So, here is the deal, if you are talking about a "need" of voters, yes we are down in numbers because percentage will matter there. However, we never exactly had a large percentage.
But, if you are talking about sheer numbers, competing for tags, public land etc, we have never been more crowded than we are now. There are 3,240,000 more people trying to do the same thing, often times with less public space to do it, and less landowners agreeing to allow access.
I also believe that "western hunting" is likely the most overpopulated it has ever been. Due to most modes of transport becoming more advanced people are more likely to travel further and more often. Additionally, people who are even slightly interested in hunting, and many who aren't, are inundated with hunting videos on youtube and other social media glorifying western hunting like elk as the holy grail of hunting. So, more people than ever are showing interest in it, putting in tags, and giving it a go.
These overcrowding problems aren't likely to get better. I think many people think we can "introduce youth" our way out of it. Put bluntly, it won't. There is almost nothing I can think of that will change this trajectory that wouldn't also be devastating to hunting.
All of that said, I take youth hunters out every single year, as long as there is one around that even hints at wanting to go. I want to share this hobby/passion with anyone that might be interested in it.
But the reality is, we will never recruit enough people to make some big voting group. And, even if we did, we would be miserable as hunters. We would effectively ruin what we love about hunting.
I am divided in my opinion.
In my country, Croatia, there is 70.000 hunters, in total population of 3.7 million people.
Maybe it does not sound much, but this is the biggest civilian NGO, in the country, and bigger in size then two main political parties.
Now looking into hunting environment, problems are same as everywhere else in the world, but when it comes to hunting laws, and partialy when it comes to gun laws, for average hunter the laws are very very good, hunter friendly.
I think this comes from lobying power of the organisation. I cannot say this for fact, this is just my impression.
Ageing.
Yes, my hunting club average age is 54. National average I dont know, but it should be similar.
We are old.
Hunters are generally conservative community, if a young hunter comes from nowhere (ie he is not a son ,or grandson of some local hunter, he will have hard time being accepted to local hunting community. We are not warm welcoming community. It is turn off for many young people.
Price of equipment is high, and when young you need money for everything else.
So, elderly community we remain.
I speak for my local community. Also no youth programs
Not enough hunters.
Yes and no. It would be better to have more hunters, to make better public visual presence.
But on the other hand, how many predators you need per square mile?
It is already too much.
Most of the hunting is done in hunting clubs.
And the situation most common in club is: like 90 tags issued annually for boar, red deer, and roe deer, in the club which has 150 members.
Then the club rules for hunting are restrictive, competition is high, many hunters unhappy. Average is less then one animal taken per hunter per year.
