For many avid hunters, the good news is the regular deer season in our region opens on Saturday. But for a few, that's also the bad news. Why the difference in opinions? It's primarily a demographical and business issue.
When the DEC and NYS Conservation Council polled the state's deer hunters, apparently the majority indicated they'd like to see a Saturday opening day rather than the Monday openers which had become traditional over the decades. The thinking was it would allow hunters who had Monday to Friday work schedules the opportunity to hunt on both opening day and the second day. It also meant big game hunting license-age students wouldn't have to “skip school” to hunt the opener. It would also add eight weekend days for hunters to be afield during the overall gun season. Sounds like a win-win situation, right?
However, after the first two years of the Saturday openers, complaints began to trickle in. The initial ones came from businesses, saying their preseason sales to hunters, which normally occurred the weekend prior to the old Monday openers, had dropped substantially. Hunters who resided outside the area they hunted also complained that the Saturday opener meant they still had to take the day or two off prior to opening day to travel and make preparations to hunt once there. And lastly, the anticipated spike in school-age youth deer hunters fell well below expectations, despite a brief increase when the minimum age to hunt big game was lowered.
There were also some concerns voiced by some non-hunters who said the Saturday deer hunting opener caused them to curtail or postpone their normal outdoor activities. Some landowners, especially those with larger acreage, also expressed concerns regarding safety and increased trespassing. So now, following several years to “test drive” the Saturday openers, are they proving to be an improvement over the Monday openers of the past?
From this writer-hunter's observation, coupled with conversations with other deer hunters, I'm beginning to conclude that not a whole lot has changed. Yes, week-day working hunters no longer have to take vacation days to hunt the opener, but it seems that many did that when the seasons opened on Mondays. In fact, the most avid ones often took the entire first week off to hunt. And I see fewer out-of-area shoppers and patrons frequenting area businesses during the daylight hours.
Given the economic problems in the state (and nation) those deer hunters fortunate enough to have adequate employment may enjoy the fact that they no longer have to take vacation or unpaid leave to hunt opening day, but the overall impact of changing the opener from a Monday to a Saturday has failed to stop the ongoing decrease in the number of hunters in New York. There were only 717,696 resident big game licenses sold in 2007-08. And thanks to the anticipated fee increases and the large increase in lifetime license sales (106,915 sold), sales increased to 849,217 during the 2008-09 licensing year, in addition to 24,999 non resident licenses.
Reversing the trend of declining hunters and the related revenue they provide for conservation, local economies and wildlife management in the state is not as simple as manipulating or changing opening days or hunting seasons' dates. Recent polls have shown that the primary reasons New York hunters left the sport had to do with loss of access to hunting areas they'd historically hunted in, encountering less game, and physical changes brought on by aging. Throw in a depressed economy in much of upstate New York, where hunting is more of a traditional activity, and all these factors paint a not so rosy future for both hunting and the state's ability to effectively manage wildlife.
Prior to Oct. 1, 2009, a lifetime Resident Senior Sportsman license could be gotten by hunters age 65 or older for $50. But after that date the fees for a resident lifetime sportsman license catapulted to $600 for hunters age 12-64 and $765 for those aged 12-69. Now just how many New York sportsmen/women age 65-69 or older are going to shell out $765 for a lifetime license? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the folly in that little gem of fee restructuring by our state leaders. Of course once you reach age 70 or older, you can get a senior sportsman license for a mere $10, providing you're still motivated and physically able to stand the rigors of hunting.
It almost seems as though New York is doing everything it can to further the decline of hunting in the state rather than adopting new measures to reverse it. New York is one of only a handful of states that refuses to legalize crossbows for archery hunting, despite seeing increasingly more aging bowhunters quitting the activity. Likewise, it refuses to classify doves as a managed migratory game species and install a September hunting season for what is our nation's most abundant gamebird. To compensate for a Conservation Fund that's on the verge of bankruptcy, it comes out with a fee increase that garners a fast $24K one-time income via the pre-Oct. 1 “fire sale” on Lifetime Sportsman licenses. Keep in mind that the vast majority of the 106,915 sportsmen/women who bought those will never spend another dollar for a New York sporting license. And the Conservation Fund that primarily funds our fish and wildlife programs will suffer even further.
So, in closing I can only say that regardless of whether deer season opens on a Saturday or a Monday may become a relatively moot point, given the failing methodology being adopted by the state and the DEC as it relates to fish and wildlife management and the critical funding the related programs require.