By PJ DelHomme 

There is a small but vocal segment of American society that would like nothing more than to see hunting go away. Let’s do it then. Let’s see what might happen if no one hunted in the U.S. 

Hunting is human. We’ve been killing and eating animals long before tofu and smoothies. As hunting has evolved over the eons, it seems only recently that some want to see hunting go away entirely. That’s a bad idea, not simply because I like hunting.

Long before our country even had a name, America evolved with hunting. Native Americans shaped the landscape to suit their hunting needs. Hunting is the basis of the North American Model of Conservation, which, among other things, pays for our bounty of wildlife and ensures wild animals remain on the landscape. Take hunting away, and we will get a whole heap of problems. Here are just a few. 

Deer Apocolypse 

Animal lovers tend to be pro-deer until the deer eat their prized flowers or fly through the windshield. Let’s pick on Iowa for a moment. Iowa has roughly 400,000 deer. “Unchecked, Iowa’s deer herd could grow at a rate of 20 percent to 40 percent each year. At this rate, deer numbers would double in as few as three years,” according to a report by Iowa DNR. The report also says that hunting is the only major source of mortality for the state’s deer population, killing about 25 percent of them each year. Considering that Iowa is already third in the nation for deer collisions, imagine what might happen when the population doubles every three years? Auto insurance is already expensive, and it would be a lot worse without hunters. 

Agencies Would Go Broke 

Hunters, shooters, and anglers pay for wildlife conservation in our country. We pay to play. You don’t need a license for so-called non-consumptive uses like birdwatching, backpacking, mountain biking, or camping. Those industries have fought hard for years to keep taxes off of their gear. Here’s the deal. 

Every time you buy a new rifle, ammo, lures, or fill up your boat for a day on the water, you pay a little extra—generally around 10 percent—to fund fish and wildlife conservation. These excise taxes make up the Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration Program, and they have generated tens of billions of dollars for wildlife restoration projects since 1937. Duck Stamps are to national wildlife refuges as hunting and fishing licenses are to state fish and game budgets. Those hunting and fishing license sales make up the lion’s share of management budgets across the nation. In Idaho, $55 million of their $120 million fish and game budget comes from license revenue. In Indiana, the combination of license fees along with allocations from the Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration Program makes up 69 percent of the state’s fish and wildlife funding. Where would the money come from without hunters, shooters, and anglers? 

Who Would Find the Bodies? 

Hunters have a knack for stumbling upon the decomposing remains of fellow humans. In the fall of 2023, hunters found more than a few bodies in the Vermont woods, some of which had gunshot wounds in the head. According to the National Association of Missing and Unidentified Persons System, 600,000 people go missing in the U.S. each year. Sometimes, they go into the deer woods for a quiet spot to commit suicide. Other times, bodies are wrapped up in a tarp and dumped in the woods of South Carolina. If you do stumble across human remains, don’t touch anything. If you can, take a few photos of the area so law enforcement believes you. Mark the exact location, leave, and contact the authorities when you’re back in cell phone range. 

How Would PETA Make Money? 

Here’s PETA’s take on the necessity of hunting: “Hunting might have been necessary for human survival in prehistoric times, but today most hunters stalk and kill animals merely for the thrill of it, not out of necessity. This unnecessary, violent form of “entertainment” rips animal families apart and leaves countless animals orphaned or badly injured when hunters miss their targets.”

Talk about dramatic. Seriously, though, how would these groups feed themselves without a villain? Have you seen the cost of wheatgrass lately? In 2022, PETA received $66 million in contributions. They spent $14.3 million on executive compensation, salaries, and wages. You can’t raise that kind of money without something to rally against. To be fair, PETA doesn’t just rally against hunting. They’re also against humans eating animals of any kind, and they would prefer that we all turn into vegans.  Good luck with that.

Food Insecurity 

One deer can feed up to 200 people. That’s some serious bang for your buck. Get it? Hunters donate nearly 10 million pounds of game meat annually, which provides approximately 40 million meal servings for hungry people. I certainly don’t see PETA lining up at the food bank with a Ford full of tofu. There is serious food security in wild game. Other research shows that American hunters annually share some 103 million pounds of harvested game meat with family, friends, or others outside their immediate households.

If no one hunted, where would that protein come from? I love flank steaks, but have you seen the cost of meat lately? Why buy the cow when you can get your venison for free? Well, it’s not free because we pay licenses and taxes to fund our fish and game departments (see above). 

If Americans ever stopped hunting, the list of things that would hit the proverbial fan would be vast. These five scenarios are just the tip of the iceberg. Our system of conservation may not be perfect, nor does it please everyone, but that’s hardly the point. For now, we’ve got hunters willing to take to the hills and keep the neighbors and family fed, deer populations down, agencies funded, and ani-hunters mad. That’s good enough for me. 

PJ DelHomme is a writer and editor living in western Montana. He runs Crazy Canyon Media and Crazy Canyon Journal.