Small-game v/s big game hunts

[Lee Borgersen]

   Small-game hunting in Minnesota is on the decline while big-game hunting grows.

                Why is that?

9/16/17


  ....
Saturday is the first day of hunting in Minnesota for ruffed grouse, squirrels, rabbits and other small game.

For hunters, it’s the start of an eagerly awaited annual tradition that will only intensify as the temperatures and leaves crisp and fall; duck hunting starts Sept. 23, and pheasants Oct. 14.

If history is any guide, there will be fewer hunters afield than a decade ago, a trend mirrored by national figures.

According to estimates from the Department of Natural Resources, here’s how the decline looks, from the 1995-’96 season through last year:

Ruffed grouse: 29 percent decrease, from 116,000 hunters to 67,000
Pheasants: 38 percent decrease, from 96,000 hunters to 60,000
Ducks: 44 percent decrease, from 119,000 hunters to 67,000
Gray squirrels: 31 percent decrease, from 35,000 hunters to 24,000
Individually, each of those might be explainable: Ruffed grouse populations cycle, and so do hunters. Pheasant numbers are down thanks to habitat loss; a spike in hunters around 2007 correlates with the high point of federal conservation acreage. Ducks are hard to find, the result of changes in habitat, water quality and weather patterns. And squirrels, who hunts for squirrels any more?

 
Except not all those explanations stand scrutiny: Ruffed grouse hunters have not rebounded as robustly as the birds. Ducks may be harder to find but geese are everywhere, and goose hunting seasons are long; note how the Canada goose hunting trend mirrors the duck trend. And squirrels, well, there are no such reasons for why squirrel hunting has become such a rarity, since they’re plentiful and require little equipment.


So there are no excuses that explain it all — just the fact that fewer people are hunting these critters.

Nationally, small-game hunting, not including migratory birds like ducks, decreased 27 percent between 2006 and 2016, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report issued last month.

Likely causes of the decline in small-game hunting are many:

Nature deficit disorder: Younger people just don’t get outside enough, even to pick pinecones, much less spend a day chasing, shooting and cleaning small birds and mammals.

Demographics: Too many hunters are too old. A Fish and Wildlife Service report on hunter retention between 1990 and 2010 concluded that the aging baby boomer generation was likely to continue to push hunting participation down; by age 70, 80 percent of hunters have given it up, and the oldest baby boomers are 72 today.

Go big or go home: Younger hunters today are going straight to deer and wild turkey hunting, skipping over the traditional paths that started with small game. (Ever seen a TV show on squirrel hunting?)

 Are all these true

Fewer hunters matters because the impact of hunting ranges from hotel stays in rural towns to federal taxes on equipment that fund federal conservation programs.

WHAT ABOUT DEER?
The one counter-trend to the decline of small-game hunting is big-game hunting, which has held flat nationally over the past decade and seen increases in Minnesota.

In 2000, nearly 456,000 deer hunting licenses were purchased in Minnesota. In 2015, amid low deer populations, just under 500,000 licenses were bought. That’s a nearly 9.5 percent increase.

Recent mild winters have prompted the deer population to rise, so there should be more deer this year than there has been for some time.

And Saturday is also opening day for archery hunting for deer.



  Here’s how it looks in a graph:

                                               

  I forgot you need special glasses to view da graph and I'm da only one dat has dem


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