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| Would we make even more if we educated deer? |
Following up on an earlier posting of mine:
Once again, there is no mention of the costs associated with hunting in general and deer hunting in particular. There is mention that an average out of state hunter pays $160 in deer licenses and tags. In 2009, there were 43,998 out of state hunters . We can concede the $160 average since the rates seem to vary. Then there were 800,372 residential hunters. They pay $24 for their license according to the DNR website. This gives us a total of $26,248,608 in license fees. The proposed total budget for the DNR in Wisconsin is $583.2 million for 2 years or approximately $291 million per year. Thus the total of the licensing fees for deer hunting is about 9% of the annual DNR budget.
That gives us a return on investment for a single year of 18.91%. That sounds great... until you consider that a University of Wisconsin - Madison education gives a 12.3% ROI every year for 40+ years on a one time investment! The ROI for certain technical colleges and fields is significantly higher.
And the hunting ROI does not yet address any of the other costs that I asked about in the earlier posting such as: lost work productivity, loss of life/tax revenue due to hunting accidents, damage to personal and public property by hunters, enforcement costs that are not covered by the DNR (such as local sheriff enforcement of laws).
It would seem that true Conservative looking at the relative investment value would opt for free Wisconsin education to anyone who signs a contract to stay in the state rather than for hunting and deer herd management. This would provide the state with a much better and longer lasting return on investment.
