While there's a lot of uncertainty in the hunting world these days, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has some encouraging news. Hunting and fishing license sales are up through October before the regular firearms deer season ever began.
News Channel 3 reports the DNR has seen a total of 460,437 hunting licenses and 1.08 million fishing licenses sold through October 31. The main factor that's boosted these figures in the Great Lakes State comes from an area you might not expect, and that's non-resident hunting license sales. Michigan has traditionally not been considered a destination spot for out-of-state hunters. However, the DNR says they've sold 21,723 non-resident licenses this year. That's a jump of four percent over sales at the same time last year. It's not a huge jump, but in these uncertain times, the DNR isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"We are excited to see any growth in license sales and continue to encourage hunters and anglers whether here in Michigan or living elsewhere to continue to enjoy all that we have to offer," DNR's acting manager of public outreach and engagement, Dustin Isenhoff said.
The Michigan DNR, much like the wildlife agencies of other states, has real concerns with overall hunter numbers and retention. That's mostly because license sales make up the bulk of the funding for these agencies and declining hunter numbers are resulting in a loss of revenue for them. Michigan has lost 250,000 hunters in the last 25 years.
"There are some good signs but also some challenges as sales numbers have continued to gradually decline by about 1% to 3% a year since 1996 with some exceptions such as 2020 when there was an upsurge generally attributable to extra people had on their hands during the pandemic," Isenhoff told the news station.
Indeed, as a yearly Michigan hunter, I've noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of hunters afield, and a decrease in the number of shots heard each opening morning over the past several years. Michigan's regular firearms deer season opened on Tuesday to near-perfect cold and snowy weather conditions in much of the state.
Isenhoff said the DNR is closely monitoring the trends in sales and will be looking for new ways to grow the fishing and shooting sports in the future. Any growth is better than decline at this point.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Instagram For original videos, check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
