As the Wilmington Star-News reports, the number of hunters in North Carolina has increased in the last few years after being in decline since at least the early 1900s. A lot of that had to do with the economy, particularly the sad state of the housing industry. (People in the building trades tend to also hunt and fish, and they’ve had a lot of extra time on their hands to do so.) But a portion of the increase comes from urban foodies, who have taken up hunting to get what they consider a more organic dinner:
License sales provide a snapshot of where these new hunters live, and reinforce this shift. New Hanover County permit sales increased nearly nine percent between 2008 and 2013, though numbers held steady over that same period in the less urbanized Pender and Brunswick counties. Mecklenburg County, the state’s most populous, grew by 12.4 percent. Just behind, Wake County saw an 11.3 percent increase.
