Many people have been negatively affected by COVID-19. The physical, mental and economic toll it has taken is hard to measure. Add that to society’s long list of pre-existing problems.

Whitetails face a plethora of challenges, too. Researchers are working tirelessly to overcome these. Part of this entails the sharing of information, which led to the Southeast Deer Study Group and its annual meetings.

This year, we attended the virtual event and pulled together some of the latest information on COVID and how it impacted deer and deer hunting. The truth is that COVID and deer hunting have a love-hate relationship. Here are 10 ways COVID made good and bad impacts.

1. Non-hunters became hunters.

It quickly became clear that many states experienced a sudden influx of first-time hunters. The driving factor? People wanted to fill their freezers.

According to Bryan Burhans and Coren Jagnow of the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC), they witnessed the most first-time buyers in the 12–34 age group in the last four years. More than 25,000 new hunters in that bracket purchased a license for the first time.

Jenifer Wisniewski, chief of outreach and communications for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), said first-time license buyers increased by 30%. While these new hunters wanted to dip their toes in hunting, polling revealed they needed guidance, and not all of them were able to find it. Approximately 67% hunted with family and/or friends who’d been before. Around 11% were with family and/or friends who’d never been. And 22% hunted on their own.

Another polling question asked them what information would help them have a better time outdoors. More than 57% wanted to know where to go, 46% desired tips and tricks, nearly 36% wanted season date reminders, and almost 19% wanted how-to information.

Another polling question revealed that nearly 80% of respondents said they expected to purchase another hunting license next season, and 68% were likely to recommend the same to family and friends.

2. Resident license sales increased.

Most states experienced a rise in resident hunter participation. This likely stemmed from several things. New hunters joined ranks, showing a first-time interest in the sport. Passive hunters made a return, signaling they had more time on their hands. And devout hunters who generally traveled elsewhere to hunt were more apt to stay home to chase deer.

According Burhans and Jagnow, PGC resident license sales were up in 2020 (874,723) compared to 2018 (846,224) and 2019 (849,571). However, it was lower than during the 2016 and 2017 seasons, when numbers eclipsed 900,000 and 875,000, respectively. And it’s certainly still down from the all-time record of 1.38 million in 1982.

“Compared to 2019, Pennsylvania had a general hunting license sales increase of nearly 3%,” said Burhans and Jagnow. “Looking specifically at deer hunting opportunities, there was a 5% increase of antlerless deer licenses and a 9% increase in archery licenses purchased compared to the same time frame in 2019.”

3. Non-resident license sales wavered.

While most states enjoyed a significant rise in resident license sales, the same wasn’t true for non-resident activities. COVID negatively impacted this sales category. Most agencies revealed a drop, or at best a reduced increase, when observing year-over-year participation.

“Non-resident adult licenses increased by only 1.2% compared to last year,” said Burhans and Jagnow. “Days before the start of the rifle deer season in Pennsylvania, which is typically one of the most popular hunting seasons for non-residents, Pennsylvania’s governor issued new restrictions on out-of-state travel.”

4. Lapsed hunters returned to the pastime.

After analyzing the data from the 2020–21 hunting seasons, another key realization is that many hunters returned. Many of those who’d been missing in action for at least one season came back.

“The pandemic has a silver lining,” Wisniewski said. “People are rediscovering hunting and fishing at high rates. R3 (recruitment, retention and reactivation of hunters, anglers, shooters) has been a challenge for our community at large, and COVID is an opportunity to make real strides in the decline of hunters.”

She said that 67,000 license buyers were reactivated, and there was 15% total growth over the year before.

Interestingly, according to PGC data, license sales have increased year-over-year only 14 times in 37 years. And this appears to have a correlation with Pennsylvania unemployment rates.

5. Tourism- and supply-chain-reliant businesses suffered.

While state agencies seemed to have a banner year — at least in terms of modern figures — not all sectors of the deer hunting industry were as successful. In fact, several areas took major hits.

Many outfitters with non-resident-heavy client bases took it on the chin. A sluggish supply chain prevented some manufacturers from importing both raw materials and finished goods. And smaller retail businesses — especially local archery shops — couldn’t get the inventory they needed to reach sales goals.

On the flip side, firearms and ammunition sales skyrocketed … that is, until inventory ran out and a sloth-like supply chain came to a screeching halt. Still, the sudden demand resulted in gun and ammo makers landing a windfall, and it also produced a sudden surge in excise taxes for wildlife conservation.

6. Meat processors were slammed.

The COVID pandemic quickly led to a meat shortage throughout the world, even here in the United States. Kip Adams, chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association (NDA), weighed in on that.

“The number of slaughtering plants in the U.S. has declined 70% since the 1960s,” Adams said.

That in and of itself created a perfect storm for issues if and when things came to a grinding halt. In 2020, they did. As a result, empty meat shelves led to increased interest in deer hunting, and that led to an unforeseen problem.

Many local meat processors could not meet the demands of hunters. According to Adams, small processing plants still have 10–15-month backlogs. And numerous states — including Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin — still expect hunters to face extreme difficulty in finding venison processors.

As a result, many hunters were forced to process their own deer, and agencies stepped up to help educate them.

7. Wildlife agencies and DNRs seized opportunities to make changes and do good things.

“The COVID pandemic changed normal operating procedures for most businesses in 2020, and that included state wildlife agencies,” Adams said.

Most states changed their methods of operation due to the virus, and 43 states moved staff to remote locations. Still, most of these agencies managed to meet goals and completed everything they needed to accomplish.

For example, COVID did not impact CWD sampling, according to Burhans. The PGC ramped up precautions and COVID preventions, but the work was still completed. Historically, PGC collects data from 23,000-27,000 deer. In 2020, they did so from 25,454.

COVID also provided an opportunity for state agencies to make positive changes. For example, Iowa established a venison exchange program. Arkansas, Mississippi and others launched online hunter education programs. Vermont began online harvest reporting. And still, many others produced various educational tools, such as Missouri’s digital series on processing deer meat.

8. Wildlife agencies must play a bigger role in hunter recruitment and retention.

While people have widely viewed non-profit organizations as the go-to entities for conserving wildlife, it’s the wildlife agencies themselves who have the most power to conserve hunters.

“One thing I have that non-profits don’t — because I’m not allowed to give it away — is the name and address of every hunter who has purchased a license,” Burhans says. “There’s no doubt that non-profits play an important role, but they’re only able to touch a small fragment of the hunting population.”

Because of this, agencies must start doing a better job of engaging existing and potential hunters. Fortunately, most of them are waking up to this fact.

9. Marketing has been the missing puzzle piece.

We know how wildlife agencies and DNRs conserve wildlife. How do they do the same for hunters? Good marketing. And in the past, most of them haven’t done that.

“Wildlife agencies have a captive audience,” Burhans says. “If you want to hunt, you have to buy a license from them. They don’t have a direct competitor out there. So, in the past, agencies haven’t had to worry about marketing. But today, they have to compete with everything else in the world that a hunter does.”

COVID is making this more apparent than ever before. And some agencies are picking up on that. These are implementing good marketing programs.

The PGC is but one example of a state organization ramping up and modernizing its outreach efforts, and they recently filled out a 19-member marketing team roster. Positions include professional communicators, marketers, graphic artists, digital experts and more.

10. The fight to conserve hunters is perhaps more of a matter of time and maybe not so much disapproval.

In 2020, people had more time to hunt than in the past. COVID canceled other activities, but not hunting.

“We often hear that hunting is dying,” Burhans says. “Hunting is not dying. But we haven’t helped ourselves by using marketing tools to do a better job. With the decline of hunting, I don’t think it’s a disdain for it. I just think there’s more competition for people’s time. My take-home message from all of this that there seems to have been a positive impact of license sales as a result of COVID because people had more time to hunt.”

Some agencies saw the opportunity and capitalized on it as the shutdown occurred. According to Wisniewski, lots of marketing tactics were deployed during the pandemic, including updated verbiage on digital ads, email campaigns instructing hunters on how to get outside, and the use of social media influencers. All of this and more resulted in a surge of license buyers.

In 2020, the TWRA used geofencing and targeting to rake in $4 million in digital-ad-driven revenue. They invested in digital SEM, with a focus on keywords. Targeting current license holders and lapsed license buyers, their goals were to dispel myths, educate hunters and increase the harvest.

Agencies that were behind in 2020 are playing catchup now. And for hunting to survive long-term, all of them need to go to bat to take some of the most valuable market share known to man — his time.

“We have to market,” Burhans says. “As agencies, we have to start looking at how we do business. We have to better communicate. We have to reach constituents, hunters and non-hunters to successfully do our job.”

In conclusion, according to some sources, there’s an expected 1 million new hunters as a result of COVID. If it happens, the next million will be a result of good marketing.