Ohio's deer tag sales shrink with reduced first six-week archery deer kill

A drop of eight percent in the first six-week Ohio archery deer-hunting season harvest has spilled over to a near-corresponding fall in sales of either-sex deer tags.

Approximate real-time sales of Ohio’s so-called “special deer permits” - which allow the taking of any deer and of either sex - stands at 152,074 documents. For the same period of Feb. 15, 2009 to Oct. 31, 2009 the Ohio Division of Wildlife sold 161,879 special deer permits. That is a drop of just over 6 percent.

This special deer permit sales decline has resulted in a revenue loss for the Wildlife Division of $235,320.

However, the decline in sales of antlerless-only deer permits was not nearly so steep. For the period Feb. 15, 2010 through Oct. 31, 2010, the Wildlife Division sold 87,304 antlerless-only deer permits. For the same period in 2009 the Wildlife Division sold 87,799 antlerless-only deer tags, or a drop of less than 1 percent.

Annual resident general hunting license sales have taken something of a hit, too.
For the period between Feb. 15, 2010 and Oct. 31, 2010, the Wildlife Division sold 189,199 resident general hunting licenses.

Last year for the same time segment the Wildlife Division sold 200,767 resident general hunting licenses. The revenue slope translates into a departure of $219,792 for the Wildlife Division, or a net loss of 5.76 percent.

Also off were sales of youth-only deer permits - a drop of 3.43 percent.

Gains, however, we seen in reduced-cost senior citizen deer tags - up 7.6 percent; reduced-cost senior citizen antlerless-only deer tags - up 9.8 percent, as well as reduced-cost senior citizen general hunting licences - up 9.63 percent.

But in each of these three cases the actual numbers of licenses sold was small, meaning only a marginal gain for the Wildlife Division’s bank account.

Down even more than the various resident general hunting licenses and individual deer tags are sales of the permits required to hunt fall wild turkey and waterfowl.

Sales of fall wild turkey hunting permits declined 11.55 percent: 5,700 such permits sold between Feb. 15, 2010 to Oct. 31, 2010, and compared to the 6,444 permits sold for the same period in 2009.

Off, too, are sales of the state’s waterfowl (duck) stamp. Here, the drop went from the 20,465 such state duck stamps sold from Feb. 15, 2009 to Oct. 31, 2009 to the 18,410 state duck stamps sold between Feb. 15, 2010 and Oct. 31, 2010.

Thus, overall, the Wildlife Division’s income has shrunk 2.47 percent, or a loss of $347,930.

In total dollar terms this means that the Wildlife Division’s revenue for the period between Feb. 15, 2010 and Oct. 31, 2010 was $13,714,955. For the same period in 2009 the agency’s revenue was $14,062,885.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com