According to columnist V. Paul Reynolds, the statistics don’t support hunting’s naysayers.

BY V. PAUL REYNOLDSOUTDOORS COLUMNIST

Outdoors in Maine: New hunting trends to keep the old sport alive

Fueled by a liberal press and the animal rights lobby during the past decade, the conventional notion has come to be this: recreational hunting is on the skids, living on borrowed time. Even among the ranks of outdoor writers, there are some of my peers who have bought in to this negativity, arguing that the blood sports are terminal in Western culture.

V. Paul Reynolds, Outdoors Columnist

Is that really the case?

Statistics really don’t support the naysayers. In 2004, there were about 15 million licensed hunters in the U.S. Granted, the numbers dipped slightly below that total during the following decade, but then peaked at 15.6 million in 2018.

No doubt cultural changes have had a negative impact on the recruitment…