Feb 25, 2011

Elmer Fudd to the rescue

We don't have as many hunters as we used to, but plenty of us still lurk in the forests, plod through the brome, climb for bighorns, and (masochistically, if you ask me) sit on our damp and frozen arses in dark swamps, waiting for the ducks to fly at sunrise.

How many? The official USFWS guess was a little over 12 million licensed hunters in 2006.  Other estimates run much higher, But even if you accept the government guess and then cut it in half, we field more than six million armed men and women who at least think they know something about field craft and shooting.

That just happens to be roughly the number of souls in the armed forces of the largest four foreign military establishments combined.

I wonder if the Pentagon has war-gamed this?

Yeah, I know invasions a la June 6, 1944, are the archaic visions of grouchy old Luddites. On the other hand, when General Dynamics, Rockwell International, and other merchants of highly technological  death start demanding payment in gold, even I with my sporterized 1903 might start looking militarily viable.

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North Korea and Russia, 1.1 million each, India 1.3  million, China 2.3 million.

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(h/t Alan.)

2 comments:

KurtP said...

The official USFWS guess was a little over 12 million

Is that a guess on how many went hunting, or a guess on how many licenses were sold- buy states that keep records on these things?

OR- do we know how many were sold in 50 states and 0bamas people are guessing about the last seven?

Jim said...

It seems to be the number of licenses the fed Smokies think were sold to people 16 and older.

The link:

http://www.bowsite.com/bowsite/features/articles/2006survey/

I've seen other estimates -- generally from the shooting and hunting industry -- up to 25 million hunters.