In theory, the banning together of both deer farmers and preserves owner to promote hunting in a positive light seems like the best option - at least on the surface. But looking beneath the surface the key-points that would need to be address and accomplished are leaving me a bit nervous.
For example; let's just say we are successful and we do increase the amount of hunters that entertain the services and products we are promoting. Through a successful promotional and marketing campaign we increase the amount of hunters visiting preserves by 100%. Basically we as an industry go from supplying 20,000 hunts a year to 40,000. On the surface this would be a great mark of progress indicating we as an industry have doubled the amount of deer we would need to produce each year.
This is great ideology - on the surface!!
However, beneath the surface and in "most cases", the hunting preserves also raise "a lot of their own deer". What would or could be put in place to prevent the preserves from stepping up their own production numbers to lessen the need for outsourcing from folks that raise deer solely for the breeder/preserve market?
As it stands currently, I feel we are playing with a double edge sword. On one side we could get cut if we don't do anything to promote the industry and on the other side we could also get cut by taking the initiative to promote higher hunting numbers. Looking at the feedback I got from 5-6 different preserves this year, most are claiming they don't need to purchase as many buck because they are producing the bulk of their own deer.
Hmmm, ok!! So this indicates the preserves (at least the 5-6 that I've spoken with) have become somewhat self sufficient. They are relying less and less on the deer farmer to meet the needs/demand of the hunting customers.
Again, in theory, if we as an industry were to form a marketing campaign group and successfully increase the number of hunters entertaining the services or products we offer, what is going to prevent the preserves from increasing their own "on the farm" production numbers and in turn once again create less of a demand for shooting stock that the deer farmers produce?
I am a little reluctant to feed the unmuzzled dog that may once again turn around and bite me.
These are just some random thoughts that I think need to be addressed in order to gain the confidence of a promotional program geared specifically towards promoting the preserve hunting side of the industry.
Regards,
John
