Reno Reporter

The hunting industry has a significant impact on Nevada's economy, a recent study found.

This is especially relevant in rural communities with a high concentration of wildlife, like Elko, Lincoln, and White Pine counties.

The Department of Economics and the Experiment Station at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) concluded through research that hunters spent approximately $380 million in the state in 2020, according to a news release from the school. That number included expenses for travel, lodging, guns, ammunition, and vehicles.

"More people want to hunt big game animals here in Nevada than there are available big game hunting tags," Michael Taylor, an assistant professor of economics at UNR's College of Business and a co-author of the reports, said in the news release. "That's what makes hunting kind of a recession-proof industry. There are so many people who want to go that demand stays strong even during an economic downturn."

The study found that the COVID-19 pandemic had little effect on hunters' contributions to the economy in comparison to 2019, the news release noted.

Researchers partnered with the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) to examine how much hunters paid for licenses and tags annually, according to the news release. They distributed a survey to 2,000 hunters to track their spending habits. The results were published as reports titled "Hunting-Related Economic Activity in Nevada" and "Hunter Expenditure in Nevada."

Taylor worked with Alec Bowman, an economics research scientist and lead author, on the reports, the news release noted. The men collaborated with Tom Harris, an economics professor, and Buddy Borden, an associate professor of community and economic development, for two years in order to publish the data.

Bobby Jones, outdoor connection coordinator for NDOW, said little was known about how hunting impacted the state's economy before this research was conducted.

"Generally, people are aware that hunting exists and support legal, regulated hunting, but are not hunters themselves, and even hunters might not sit down and pencil out exactly what they spend on hunting each year," Jones said in the news release. "Before this report, there was not enough information available to show exactly how hunting in Nevada impacts our economy."