meat hunter

A recent study by Responsive Management asked people, “Why do you hunt?” Of those polled, 35 percent said “for the meat.” That’s up 13 percent from a similar 2006 survey, when 22 percent of hunters said their primary motivation was for meat to eat.

The people who conducted the survey said the ongoing slow economy is the primary reason for the uptick in meat hunting: “As households…started to feel the effects of significant financial pressures several years ago (including frozen or reduced salaries and/or prolonged unemployment) more Americans likely turned to hunting as a way of obtaining relatively inexpensive venison…to put food on the family table.”

Another school of thought believes the recent increase in meat hunters (and hunting license sales) can also be traced to the “locavore” movement, which has been around since 2007. These are 21st century hippies and/or bohemians (not the usual hunter demographic) that eat only locally produced food that is not loaded with preservatives and not moved long distances to market. These people garden and eat healthy off the land, and the killing of a deer for the venison has become part of that.

While I do not put the Big Deer bloggers in the “locavore” category (you guys are hard-core, and kill and cut and eat your deer like you always have) there is evidence that more hippies and hipsters are hunting for venison than ever before.

Curious, would you have answered the survey “for the meat?” Or for the rack?