Deer Hunter Demography: An Age-Period-Cohort Approach to Population Projections

Richelle Winkler, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Jennifer Huck, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Keith Warnke, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

The deer herd in Wisconsin is kept in check by hunters who kill deer each fall. However, hunting license purchases have declined in recent years. This study takes a demographic perspective to analyze this applied problem faced by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. We analyze hunting participation rates over time by age, gender and type of license. We examine age, period and cohort effects to better understand what might be causing hunter decline and the likelihood that the decline will continue. The intrinsic estimator model for APC analysis (advocated by Yang et al. 2008) is employed to estimate the independent effect of each of these components. Finally, we draw on these APC estimates to generate projections of future hunters and compare this new methodology to projections made using cohort component and share methods, analyzing both conceptual and empirical differences and similarities between the three different projection methodologies.