Hunters are our nation’s original conservationists. To highlight the benefits of hunting and the importance of deer hunters to our wildlife programs the Southeast Deer Partnership initiated a multi-phase project in 2020 to increase awareness of the benefits of deer hunters and hunting to wildlife programs in the Southeast, including impacts to at-risk species. This “value of deer” project highlighted the economic, social and conservation benefits of deer hunting and included state-specific data on habitat management activities by deer hunters on private lands. The study area included the 15 states in the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) region. Research revealed greater than 6.7 million paid hunting license holders purchase over 12 million licenses, tags, permits and stamps annually, and hunting license sales exceed $251 million in the SEAFWA region. Deer hunting in this region supports approximately 209,000 jobs and $2.1 billion in local, state and federal taxes. Southeast deer hunters spend $183 million on wildlife plantings and over $1 billion on land leased primarily for deer hunting. A public education and marketing campaign promoting the value of deer ensued during 2024. The campaign included a documentary titled Wildtail: American’s Wildest Conservation Success Story and used print, digital and social media formats. The documentary was viewed over 1.1 million times on YouTube and received over 2.3 million Google ad impressions. The overall campaign received over 18.5 million impressions and was one of the largest value of deer promotions to date.
