Reply #9: Surprisingly you are right on that point too. Wildlife is way way up.

[ThomWV]

Particularly the deer population. The last two, almost three now, winters have been very mild. That means lots more deer live and it also means that the mast will be stronger in the spring. After a few years of this the populations get real high. Turkey are way way up too. Grouse populations, as most hunters know, fluctuate on a 5 year cycle and we're about to peak on them too. Anyway the effect of all this is predictable. Road kills are way up, gardens are being eaten alive, and we're starting to see a lot more coyotes, some in areas where they haven't been seen in ages.

Now this might interest you too. Although statewide hunting is down that statement is misleading. It implies that fewer people in West Virginia are hunting these days. That's not exactly true. In recent years the population of this state has been in decline, only leveling out in the last 3 or 4 years. So part of the loss of licenses over time comes from a smaller population, and it also comes from an aging population. You just don't see all that many 70-year-olds out in the woods. What was keeping our hunting numbers up was a continued interest by the people from this state coupled with increased hunting in the remote public areas by residents from other states. Basically as the suburbs of Washington got bigger and richer more of their new-found residents came here to hunt. That is falling off.