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Inside America's Deer-Industrial Complex | Adventure Ethics | OutsideOnline.com


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<You also don't need to be in wildlife management to enjoy Deerland: America's Hunt for Ecological Balance and the Essence of Wildness. The book, written by journalist and "adult-onset hunter" Al Cambronne, focuses on how Americans' emotions and attitudes toward deer often thwart rational decision-making in regard to their management and ethical treatment. This takes place in the background of what he calls the Deer Industrial Complex, which he says generates billions and billions of dollars every year.

Hunters account for only six percent of the population, but in 2011 they spent $34 billion on equipment, licenses and other things related to hunting. Working off a conservative estimate that deer hunters only made up 50 percent of all hunters, the industry annually brings in 17 billion dollars in revenue, placing it "154 in the most recent Fortune 500 listing—just behind JCPenney, but ahead of Colgate-Palmolive, Medtronic, and Southwest Airlines," he writes. If one assumes deer hunting accounts for around 85 percent of the hunting industry, Cambronne told me, it would rank around 102 on the list.>

"adult-onset hunter"   :)

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