hiwall
Has No Life - Lives on TB
In the 1920's market hunting wiped out a great amount of game birds and big game across the nation. Starting in the early 30's is when game laws became a thing. It was also when the excise tax was put on guns and ammo to pay for game management.My dad told abouit the 1930s that there were almost no deer left around here because of hunting pressure.
Many things effect game populations. In 1971 Minnesota had NO deer season. 20 years ago when I left Minnesota a hunter could legally take up to five deer.
As far as big game hunting in the end times, it would be way different than now. Now you have a set week or something when you can hunt (with millions of other hunters) but in the end times you would hunt whenever. Most game shot would likely be "targets of opportunity". You would look out the house window and see a deer and would then shoot it.
Here we have hundreds of elk and we are well over 200 miles from any urban area. I do not expect the elk will all be dead ten minutes after the collapse. Also the only 'farming' here is beef cows. There are many cows. In a collapse I expect neighbors would work together (like we do now) to butcher a cow or elk so none goes to waste. We would also work together to try and eliminate all wolves (like we do now with coyotes).
It would take about one elk per person per year to keep people fed (or the equal amount of beef). In a collapse situation people will no longer be able buy gas to drive hundreds of miles to go hunting in the hopes of getting lucky enough to shoot something.