Pa game commission behind national average in hunting license sales

Pennsylvania lags in sales of hunting licenses

By Deborah Weisberg Southwest Correspondent
Posted on August 30, 2012
Pittsburgh — While the number of licensed hunters rose nationally by 9 percent over the past five years, they dropped in Pennsylvania, according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In fact, hunter participation throughout the Midwest – traditionally a hunting stronghold – remained level from 2006 to 2011, while southern states gained new ground, said Richard Aiken, the report’s lead statistician.
“The center of wildlife recreation was always in states like Wisconsin, Iowa the Dakotas,” Aiken said. “Now the numbers in those states are basically flat.”
What’s new, he said, is that states such as Mississippi and Alabama are licensing more hunters.
The total increase in hunters in all 50 states went from 12.5 million in 2006 to 13.7 million in 2011. While it is still below the 55-year high of 14 million in 1991, it reverses a downward trend since the 2000 to 2005 census, Aiken said.
Pennsylvania, which once counted more than 1 million hunters, has seen license sales drop from 945,892 in 2006 to 933,208 in 2011 – a decline that Aiken said “amazed” him, given the state’s strong hunting tradition.
Pennsylvania’s numbers include junior license buyers, ages 12 to 16, whereas the national census is limited to hunters age 16 and older.
Aiken said many factors determine hunter participation, from access to time constraints, a perspective Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser points to as well.
Feaser called Pennsylvania’s declining license sales statistically insignificant, and said it’s unfair to look at Pennsylvania in the context of a national average, when factors vary among states.
He said he’s encouraged by the increase in hunting participation nationally, and said his agency’s own findings indicate that about 2 million Pennsylvanians consider themselves hunters, even though they don’t buy licenses every year.
“We call this the churn rate,” he said. “Our job is to figure out how to get them interested and involved in hunting again.”
Feaser said every time the commission adds new hunting opportunities, such as approving crossbows and expanding the bear season, license sales improve.
For Randy Santucci, president of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, the most impactful change the commission could make is in how it manages white-tailed deer.
Santucci said the latest figures confirm what he has long contended – that hunters are turned off by deer management in Pennsylvania.
“I know a lot of things affect whether people buy licenses,” he said, “but in Pennsylvania, the strongest factor, no matter whatever else, is deer management.
“I talk to hunters in the large sportsmen’s clubs. Someone from the Sinnemahoning Sportsmen’s Club told me just 20 of their 5,000 members entered the buck pool last year, and just two deer were measured.”
Santucci said he and seven other hunters at his own 156-acre camp in Warren County saw a total of just eight deer last fall. “I shot my deer in Allegheny County and my boy shot his in Washington County,” said Santucci, who lives near Pittsburgh.
As a member of the Governor’s Council on Hunting, Fishing and the Outdoors, Santucci said he also talks to the proprietors of hunting-related businesses in counties such as Potter, Cameron and Clinton.
“They tell me business has dropped way off, and they relate it strongly to the way deer are managed.”
That, too, would seem at odds with the national trend, since the census shows that hunting-related sales have increased significantly over the past five years, and hunters spent more time out of doors, Aiken said.
“Hunters nationally spent about 30 percent more money on equipment and the number of days they hunted jumped from 18 to 21.”
And while rural participation stayed roughly the same, the number of urban adult hunters climbed by 1 percent, owing in large part to school-based shooting sports programs, Aiken said.
The fish and wildlife service is expected to release more state-by-state data in coming weeks. The census is funded for game management agencies with revenues from the tax manufacturers pay on sporting equipment.

NAW--- they must be mistaken--- Gary Alt and the PGC promised us in 2001 that the actions they were taking would make Pennsylvania deer hunting the Quote:  BEST IN THE NATION.
Hunters are flocking here, Hunting license sales are at all time high's, camps and motels are full, businesses are getting rich, everyone is happy. We have as promised, Quote: World Class Hunting.
 
Anyone hunting Ohio this year?

Less Deer = Less License sales 
 
 
 
 

I see no problem with comparing anything as long as the comparisons are legit and considerations given to pertinent variables/factors.   The factors here are pretty cut and dried, and being considered.   Unlike some of the sunday 'comparisions' where they are often completey ignored because they arent  self serving, or some not so easy to quantify.
 
As for the good riddance comment to those quitting, thats all well and good towards those that quit, yet to varying degrees the dmp effects the satisfaction of many of us that remain.
 
Im sure many of us will continue on no matter how badly pgc screws things up.  That doesnt mean we wont still have legitimate complaints to voice regarding the mismanagement.
 
Having said that, I see nothing good to come from further reducing our ranks...   Hard core guys or not.  Lots of benefits to keeping our ranks up.   In many issues we are already being ignored.   As our ranks shrink, what political clout we do have will continue to do so as well.    And in these times, that definately is not a good thing.

It seems to me that many of the same critical factors are in play here between SH and hunter numbers.  I have said before that using other states for comparative purposes in hunting related matters is a good thing as it provides us real data on how certain state's decisions impact hunting in general, which can/should be considered elsewhere.  This case is no different IMO and I would certainly agree that the DMP is responsible for many hunters lost in PA over recent years.
 
I also realize that losing hunters en mass is not particularly a good thing and my comment was merely a joke.  For me however, life will go on and I will soon be enjoying another successful hunting season.
 
 

Eyes--that's what they are saying which by itself would inflate PA's numbers when compared with other states. That would be the correct way when comparing our own 2011 numbers against our 2006 numbers, however the PGC is using the 2011 figures INCLUDING the mentored hunters numbers from the license that has only been in effect since 2009 which inflates the total by over 33,000.
The problem with your assumption on reducing doe licenses is that the PGC has shown Zero interest in doing that in spite of their claims to the contrary. This year for example they claim to again be managing for a stable herd but based their doe licenses on our having the same number of deer this year as they said we had statewide in 2001 before herd reduction started. Kind of far fetched don't you think?
On a side note, this area is looking fairly good for nice bucks.  A year of deep snow followed by a year of next to no snow must have saved a few.

Potentially both, but definitely successful.
 
Can I say that, or are you going to yell at me again this year?
 

" Kind of far fetched don't you think? "
Uh-huh.   Just a lil.  lol.
 
KInda like Fleegles article in Sept game news.   Saying hunters have selective memory because we dare to complain about the deer situation, and apparently we shouldnt because we didnt kill tons of deer back in 1907!   lmao.   Unreal!
 
Nearly as bad as a previous issue were she likened we hunters to children crying for a rubber ball and the parent has to say no!
 
Hunter friendly bunch these folks!  lol.