What do you feel is the single biggest threat to deer hunting long term?

Coop: You hit the nail on the head from a different direction. The oldest one by rights, should get bored quicker because he saw all the deer before the high number of bonus tags. Kids get bored today regardless. Too much instant gratification in todays generation. The way I see it, since the youngsters are bored, 15 years from now we will have fewer deer hunters than the last 40 years and more deer than we know what to do with. The government will end up paying sharp shooters to do the hunters job.

 

We are already at that point, countless parks around me hire sharp shooters already which drives the overall herd number WAY down. It takes a huge toll on the overall population of hunters (especially youth) to get out there and not be successful during a hunt. Successful being seeing deer, deer sign, harvesting, ect. NOT staging a deer behind every tree like you said, failure is part of hunting if TAUGHT right. There's not enough adult mentors to teach the REAL way hunting unfolds, the media portraits that there are big bucks behind every tree so people with no hunting experience or family mentor have to learn everything by themselves which usually results in disappointment. The problem with the parks could very easily be solved by the DNR by allowing youth or archery only hunts in these metro areas/state parks while making MONEY, which is the only thing they care about. The herd will take an overall hit for a while and then it will rebound eventually because of a lack of hunters. At that point HUNTERS will be happy again, the DNR/FARM B./INS COMPS will be fighting to be right back where we are. Unfortunately its a vicious cycle. BUT..... obviously Iowa & Kansas are doing something right, huh? The big difference there is the human population, unlike Ohio where every 5 acre woodlot has a hunter in it.

 

Oklahoma has a real good deer population and excellent wildlife expert managing it. believe it or not non resident deer hunters don't require a license to hunt deer in our state (kinda sucks though for residents) but have to buy a deer tag at a higher price. The link to their website is Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation . it has tons of good information on it and ive been really impressed by what they've done for not just the deer but wildlife in general.. We even have a bear antelope and elk season now.

 

Wow, I was surprised at the results of this poll. I chose disease. Disease is the only thing that is seriously out of my control and scares the pudd'n out of me. One rampant disease outbreak that is lethal and renders deer inedible and the entire system could crash. Hunting, state revenue, conservation revenue, etc...

 

Access to land and people know it that's why people who finally purchase or get permission to hunt land guard it from anyone else and throw up trespassing signs everywhere so no one can shoot "their" big bucks

 

To answer the OP's question, I think the answers could vary from region to region, but in my area, I think the greatest threat to hunting would be 1) lack of youth interest, 2) lack of public education on hunting and wildlife conservation, 3) conflicting ethical behavior and beliefs by hunters themselves