The Economics of Hunting

Well, we finally got our moose! And by “we”, I mean my father and uncle. They do the dirtiest of the work, while I provide strategic guidance and encouragement and lay claim to a quarter in return. I tend to think it’s a pretty good arrangement.

People hunt for many different reasons- for sport, for the challenge, for the pure enjoyment of spending time in the woods- but one of the key attractions is the spoils of victory in the form of hundreds of pounds of delicious meat. My uncle likes to justify the money he spends hunting by referencing all the “free” meat it provides. “Free”, of course, is a very loose term in this context. There’s no such thing as a free lunch (quite literally, in this case), and while I’m as big a fan of wild game as anyone I’m not convinced that hunting can really be justified on the basis of frugality.

With this in mind, I set out to determine just what this moose had cost us, and what it would have cost to buy a comparable amount of beef. As a baseline measurement, I called up a local beef farm to get an idea of what they would charge for a hanging side of beef. I was told that the cost, cut and wrapped, would be $2.65 per pound. Assuming 350 pounds of meat gives us a comparison cost of $927.50.

The costs associated with our hunt were as follows:

Supplies:

License                   $40

Ammo          $25

Misc supplies (cheesecloth, pepper, rags, etc.)    $30

Gas              $200

Subtotal supplies: $295.00

Meat Processing:

Hanging         $25

Cutting          340 lbs @ $0.45/lb = $157.50

Sausages       50 lbs @ $1.25/lb = $62.50

Subtotal Processing:  $245

So the actual out-of-pocket expenses incurred in this most recent trip amount to $540.00. Compared with the cost of purchasing a comparable amount of beef in bulk, that’s a total difference of $387.50, or a whopping 40% savings. Not bad! Score one for Uncle Buck.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Getting a moose is a bit more complicated than calling up a butcher shop or beef farm- it’s a time consuming endeavour and filled with all sorts of other costs. You’ll note that my calculations above don’t include the costs associated with basic hunting gear like a rifle, knives, boots, and ex-military gear to make you look like something out of a Vietnam war movie. And of course, very few hunters stick to the basic gear- wave a Cabela’s catalogue in front of most sportsmen and you’ll quickly see glazed eyes, foaming mouths, and plummeting bank balances. Then there’s the cost of gear used in hunting, but not used exclusively for this purpose, such as an ATV, a truck, and countless subscriptions to Moose Hunter Magazine, or Bullwinkle Bi-Weekly. While these are all associated costs, your gear should last you many hunting seasons and can’t fairly be attributed to a single hunt. I was thinking about preparing a capital cost allowance formula for these additional costs, but I’ll leave that to someone a little more adept with a calculator. After all, I’m the guy who dropped out of first year math at university. Suffice it to say there is a whole realm of other expenses that hunters may incur in their pursuit of prey, but which they manage to hide from their wife and bookkeeper.

Finally, there’s the question of the time involved. This is the part that nobody likes to think about and I for one am particularly skilled at avoiding the topic of the dollar value on time whilst bragging about how much money I saved on DIY home repair projects. The reality is that time is money, and the countless hours spent sneaking through the woods have a definable economic value. My most conservative estimate of the time devoted to this most recent hunt would be in the range of 50 person hours. If we take an equally conservative estimate of the value of this time- let’s say the current minimum wage of $8.50- we get an estimated cost of $425.00. Suddenly, those moose sausages just got a little more pricey, and have actually surpassed the cost of just buying meat in bulk. And we haven’t even touched on the money spent on post-hunt beer, which will certainly add another chunk on to our total.

Now before the hate mail starts to roll in, I understand and appreciate that there’s a whole world of intangible joys that can come from hunting, and many would (and do) pay for the experience of hunting regardless of how much meat may end up in their freezer. It’s as much about the experience as it is about the steaks. I get it. But next time you’re talking about your latest trophy, don’t try to pass off hunting as an economical source of sustenance. Accord it the same respect as other pricey pastimes, like motorcycles or Scotch- an expensive habit, but well worth it. Any other explanation is just a bunch of bull.

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