Projections Are In And More People Are Hunting

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Hello people,

 

Hunting in Virginia had dropped off in popularity. I guessed that more people wanted to come hunting but they were hesitant for numerous reasons.

The Richmond Times Dispatch reported that hunting in Virginia had in fact dropped off over the last decade. “The drumbeat of bad news was more than a decade old and showed no signs of abating.

Survey after survey and license sales reflected the trends: fewer Americans were hunting and fishing. Traditions were being lost as adults spent more time at work and children more time indoors.

To compound the problem, population growth was spurring development all over the country on rural land traditionally used for hunting and fishing.”

Then the Great Recession happened, and the downward trends leveled off. In many places, they turned around entirely. Americans began to rediscover the outdoors.

Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates, a research and data analysis firm focused on the sport fishing and hunting industries, says the evidence points to several key factors.

“The slow economy has certainly had an impact,” he said. “When the economy took a hit, a lot of people went back to enjoying more traditional activities that were also less costly than other options. Fishing license sales and tackle sales data all back that up.”

There were numerous speculations as to why the reversal, the first is the simple grocery-store economics of filling one’s freezer cheaply with venison or rockfish filets. In addition, he said. “Some data suggest tourism is off in a lot of places, and people aren’t traveling as far to recreate. That could reinforce the notion that if you’re looking for an opportunity to recreate, you don’t need to go far from home to go fishing or deer hunting.”

Finally, “another thing that might play in to it to is all the people that are out of work right now. I hate to even bring this up because I feel so bad for people who are out of work. But those people have some time on their hands, and I can’t help but believe that if they had a job they wouldn’t be able to take time (to hunt or fish).”

The survey while not complete and accurate is in my opinion a pretty good indication of the pulse in the Virginia hunting industry as a whole.

The lesson we should learn from this is a bad economy is not all bad. With less work parents are home after a 40 hour week with plenty of time to spend with the kids. With the parents home the kids get out from in front of their video games and into the wide open outdoors. Take A Kid Hunting In Virginia Today!

 

Cheers,

David

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interesting thread mate enjoyed reading it