By the Numbers: Deer Hunting in Minnesota

Editor's note: the following information was compiled and released by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The Animal

• Adult female white-tailed deer weigh about 145 pounds, males 170 pounds—the average weight of female and male humans.
• The biggest white-tailed deer ever recorded was a 500-pound Minnesota buck.
• A whitetail’s home range is about one square mile.
• Minnesota’s deer population is about 1 million deer. Texas is number one with 4.7 million deer.

Hunting

• Overall success rate for Minnesota hunters in 2010 was 38 percent.
• 70 percent of Minnesota’s firearms deer harvest typically occurs during the first three or four days of the season.
• The average hunter spends five days afield during Minnesota’s firearms deer season.
• Last year’s total deer harvest was 207,313, with 98,834 of those deer antlered bucks.
• License options, which allow hunters to buy individual licenses for all the seasons, now give hunters more choices in where and when they can hunt deer; hunters can take as many as five deer in many parts of the state.
• Minnesota has averaged a deer harvest of 267,000 over the last five years; Wisconsin is number one with an average harvest of almost 450,000.
• The largest typical whitetail buck ever taken in Minnesota had a Boone & Crockett score of 202; it was shot by John Breen in 1918 near Funkley, MN.
• Minnesota’s number one non-typical whitetail buck had 43 points; it was shot by 17-year-old Mitch Vakoch in 1974. A deer recently taken during the Camp Ripley archery hunt may exceed the record.

Deer Licenses

• In total, more than 800,000 deer hunting licenses and permits (all types) were sold in 2010.
• Ninety-eight percent of deer licenses are sold to Minnesota residents.
• The DNR Information Center remained open two hours later on the day before last year’s deer opener to answer more than 2,000 telephone inquiries, most of them related to the firearms opener.

Deer Economics

• 475,000 deer hunters in Minnesota.
• Retail sales = $260 million.
• Overall economic impact = $458 million.
• Salaries, wages, business owner income = $151 million.
• State and local tax revenue = $33 million.
• Number of directly supported jobs = 5,300.
• Economic impact is greatest in Greater Minnesota.