(November 4, 2007) — Dale Statt of Honeoye Falls, a 35-year-old mother of two boys, married into a family of hunters. When she took to the field for the first time with her husband, Leigh, eight years ago, she loved it. Last year Statt bagged a 9-point buck, and she's looking forward to the start of shotgun season for whitetails in New York state's Southern Zone in two weeks. "It's a wonderful sport. My husband has taught me so much about it, and we look forward to teaching our kids," said Statt, who is an executive administrative assistant for Fibertech Networks. "We have a separate freezer for our venison. We eat more venison than beef." While the Statts eagerly look forward to another hunting season, surveys and license sales continue to show that the American hunter is an endangered species. Fewer younger people are taking up the sport and more adults are leaving it. "It's a wonderful sport. My husband has taught me so much about it, and we look forward to teaching our kids," said Statt, who is an executive administrative assistant for Fibertech Networks. "We have a separate freezer for our venison. We eat more venison than beef." While the Statts eagerly look forward to another hunting season, surveys and license sales continue to show that the American hunter is an endangered species. Fewer younger people are taking up the sport and more adults are leaving it. Concerns rise More than 87 million U.S. citizens age 16 or older fished, hunted or watched wildlife in 2006, spending more than $120 billion, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service survey of wildlife-associated recreation conducted every five years. The figures are from a preliminary report. The final report will be issued this month. While these figures represent a still robust hunting industry making a profound impact on the economy, the total number of hunters nationwide has slid from a peak of 19.1 million in 1975 to 12.5 million. Join discussion...

VANDERBILT -- The happiest guy in Michigan won't shoot a deer on today's opener of the 15-day firearms season. Rod Clute won't even be in the woods. Instead, the DNR's big game specialist will be in his office in Lansing, waiting for the phone to ring. So why is this man smiling? "Nobody's complaining," said Clute, who in recent years has taken heat from hunters as the architect of the Department of Natural Resources plan that reduced the state's deer herd from about two million to about 1.6 million over a decade. "Everybody says they are seeing deer, and seeing more bucks. Even in the traditional low-numbers areas of the western Upper Peninsula. Even people in the traditional 'there-aren't-any-deer' areas of Lake and Wexford counties. I'm just not getting any complaints," Clute said. "I'm taking that as a positive sign." Positive signs are what Frank Barger of Jackson was seeing around his Camp Barger compound in the Pigeon River Country State Forest the day before the opener. Returning from a long walk to set up his blind, the 56-year-old hunter said, "There's a lot of signs in the woods. I'm finding scrapes and a lot of rubs (where bucks mark the ground and trees). This is the best I've seen for years." Between 700,000 and 750,000 people will buy licenses for the firearms season, and Clute expects they will kill between 325,000 and 350,000 deer. (Archery and muzzleloader hunters will kill another 125,000 in their seasons.) While that equates to a statistical success rate of roughly 50%, the number of hunters who bring home the venison is probably about 30%. Join discussion...

Favorable weather and an abundance of four-legged targets could generate a record-setting start to the firearm deer season this weekend in Illinois. The seven-day hunt legally starts at 6:12 a.m. Friday and closes at 5:14 p.m Sunday. The firearm season resumes Nov. 29 and runs through Dec. 2. 'Hunters should have a pretty good weekend,' said Tom Micetich, deer project manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. 'Weather-wise, it's looking quite favorable. There may be a few showers on Sunday, but 26 for a low on Friday will get you off to a crispy start. It'll be sunny and in the 50s for Friday and Saturday, and you can't ask for much better than that for firearm deer hunting. 'The other good news is most of the crops have been harvested. Statewide, I think it's like 99 percent of the corn crop is harvested. That's the one the deer tend to hide out in when it's available.' More on this story... Join discussion...