Georgia Hunting Brings Big Bucks to the State

Our last blog post reported on the delicate issue of land conservation v. lowering the prices of commodities, and it got me thinking about how hunting, fishing, and sportsmen affect the economy.

After a little digging around I stumbled upon a news article that analyzes a report from The Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation that "spotlights the immense impact hunters and anglers have on the economy at the national and state level."

The report uses the results from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 2006 Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation and statistics provided by the American Sportfishing Association and Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

The numbers are pretty staggering.

• Sportsmen support as many jobs in Georgia as Delta Airlines and Hewlett Packard combined, two of the largest employers in the state (31,000 jobs).

• Annual spending by Georgia sportsmen is nearly four times more than the revenues of the Atlanta Hawks, Braves and Falcons ($1.8 billion vs. $460 million).

• Annual spending by Georgia sportsmen is more than the combined cash receipts for cotton, greenhouse/nursery, eggs, and cattle - the state's top agricultural commodities ($1.8 billion vs. $1.67 billion).

• Georgia sportsmen spend $207 million annually on outboard boats and engines to get out on the water and around the marshes for fishing and hunting.

• Georgia sportsmen could fill every seat at Atlanta Motor Speedway more than nine times (1.2 million vs. 124,000).

• If all hunters and anglers living in Georgia voted in the 2004 presidential election, they would have equaled 56% of the entire vote.

You can view your state's data by following this link the the reports' landing page.