Follow up: The Cost of Deer Hunting v. Education

Would we make even more if we educated deer?

Following up on an earlier posting of mine:

Wisconsin's Deer Hunt: Time for a Bit of Truth

In today's Green Bay Press Gazette, there is another article about the influx of money from deer hunting, Big Bucks: Deer season provides economic boost to Wisconsin.

Photo by BdwayDiva1 via Flickr

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.

Wisconsin's Deer Hunt: Time for a Bit of Truth

In Sunday's Green Bay Press Gazette, there was a section of articles on the Wisconsin deer hunt.

In the articles, the reporters explain how hunters are complaining that the Department of Natural Resources is not managing the deer herd well. After deer season last year, the news was rife with reports of deer hunters complaining that they didn't see any deer or that they didn't see enough deer. There were stories about how the local food banks did not get as many deer carcass donations as in previous years.

In the article, Robert Manwell, the spokesman for the DNR, says that hunters are skeptical about how the DNR does its job. The hunters complained that the deer hunt was small this year. The article also points out the 6 out of the last 10 years have been record years.

I have a very simple solution to this problem: Stop going out and killing the deer!

According to the paper, there are people out killing deer from September 17 to January 8 (for this coming year's slaughter). That's almost 4 months of killing. Hey, stop and there will be deer.

Moreover, as the article clearly states, in the last decade hunters have had six of the ten largest mass murders in Wisconsin history. If you keep having record years, eventually, somethings gotta give. Witness the real estate market, the stock market, marriage. There will be boom years, but at some point you will pay.

Every article about deer hunting tosses out the figure $1.4 billion in revenue for the state because of deer hunting. There is never a discussion of the costs.

Interestingly enough, I can't find a single study that spells out the costs to the people of the state of Wisconsin for deer hunting so I am going to write out the types of things that should be on such a list and keep working on it.


Possible hunting costs to the taxpayers:

1. Loss of life = loss of income = loss of tax revenue
2. Cost of medical bills and lost wages in non-fatal accidents
3. Cost of damage to lands by careless hunters
4. Cost of selling permits, etc.
5. Cost of enforcing state hunting and wildlife rules
6. Cost of lost work time for people taking time off from work (some will have vacation, that doesn't count, but we all know someone who takes extra unpaid days off to hunt)
7. Lost productivity due to planning hunting expeditions (we all know guys who stand around for hours before opening days to talk about what they are going to do and hours after hunting season talking about what they did).
8. Cost for year-round herd management efforts (this costs the state and the federal government millions)
9. Cost of CWD (chronic wasting disease - Mad Deer Disease) - if you ain't eatin' em, it won't matter.
10. Drunk driving accidents due to intoxicated hunters (not included on DNR injuries sheets)

Of course, the argument is that the deer will overrun the farmers and end up on the highways. That may be but not for long. Using the same money for chemical sterilization programs will keep the herd in check without having to shoot them. Also, if you travel through some parts of the Western states, they have developed alarm systems that monitor animals that travel onto the highway and warn drivers with lights.

There is a great deal of money spent on deer hunting. Taxpayers should not be forced to support recreational activities that benefit a limited group of people. Hiking trails that are used as skiing and snowmobiling trails in the winter is one thing, but taxpayer money being used for 600,000 people doesn't seem right. Especially for an elective activity. If I don't hunt, I don't have any potential for reaping any benefits from this.