The hunting economy | A guide, a camp owner, a gun dealer and a taxidermist on their roles in one of Maine's most controversial industries

Depending on who you ask, the local and visiting hunters stalking white-tailed deer in the woods of Maine this month can be seen as living examples of the state's outdoor heritage, participants in a vital wildlife management program or practitioners of an unseemly, even cruel practice that's increasingly at odds with the suburban character of the state's more developed regions.

Combine those emotions with the revenue that hunting generates ˆ— reaching everyone from guides and camp owners to butchers, taxidermists and sporting goods store operators ˆ— and you have the ingredients for the kind of contentious debate seen this fall over the proposed ban on hunting bears with bait, traps or dogs. Supporters of the ban framed the issue as a question of animal cruelty, while hunters, sporting camp owners and state officials countered ˆ— successfully ˆ— with concerns about bear population management and impact on the state's economy, particularly in northern Maine. (Ban supporters questioned the lost revenue claims by showing examples of states where bear hunting numbers increased after similar restrictions were passed.)

The fact that both sides of the bear-baiting issue employed economic factors in their arguments illustrates widespread acknowledgment of hunting's role in the Maine economy. However, there are almost no up-to-date numbers showing just how big that role is. The last major report on the economic impact of hunting was compiled by the University of Maine's Department of Resource Economics and Policy in 1998, based on survey data from 1996 and 1997.

At the time, the report estimated that hunting generated $454 million annually in Maine, largely through retail sales ($323 million). That was just under the $507 million generated by lumber and forest products in the state. Hunting also supported 6,440 jobs in Maine, contributing $130 million in wages and salaries annually.

But today, almost everyone involved in Maine's hunting industry worries that the number of hunters is declining, even though data from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife appear to show a stable population that's rebounding from the lows of the early 90s. While the total number of hunting licenses issued in Maine peaked in 1981, at 235,272, in 2003 IF&W issued 213,638 licenses, which, combined with additional permits to hunt certain types of game, generated $7.1 million in direct income for the state. Still, George Smith of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine says his surveys indicate the number of Maine households in which at least one person participates in hunting and fishing has declined to 125,000, from about 250,000 15 years ago.

In the midst of that uncertainty, businesses that make some or all of their money catering to hunters are sensitive to any regulatory changes, demographic shifts or natural cycles that might alter how, when or where people hunt. That's why Mainebiz decided to talk to businesses at the heart of the industry for a snapshot of Maine's hunting economy. We asked a guide, a camp owner, a gun dealer and a taxidermist to describe, in their own words, what they do, how they do it and how they've seen their industry change over the years.


Carroll Ware, 58 Registered Maine Guide
Fins & Furs Adventures, Skowhegan

My dad took me deer hunting for the first time when I was three, and I was very fortunate to come from a family of outdoors-minded people who were very patient with a young kid who just wanted to know everything and do what they did. So I guess it was instilled in me at an early age.

Oddly enough, I never thought I wanted to be guide. I just always thought I was going to be too busy fishing and hunting. In 1986, I'd had a back injury and literally had been off my feet for a couple of years, and I needed to make a career change as I was about to re-enter the workforce. That summer, my wife and I went up to the Broadback River fishing camps in Quebec, fished for a week, and I came home thinking about it. Eventually I said, "You know, I bet that I could sell enough fishing trips every year so that we could get a free trip up there." That's all it was going to be. Well, that business grew into what is now Fins & Furs Adventures.

I guide upland [bird] hunters, moose hunters, fishermen, hikers and that sort of thing. Typically, with an upland guiding day I provide the vehicle, the pointing dogs, soft drinks and fruit. I clean birds for them, keep them safe, keep them from getting lost, and they get to hear all of my stories at no extra charge. One of the other things we do is run a guide's training program, and I've said for years to the students that people come to Maine and hire a guide with the expectation that the guide knows more about the subject at hand than they do.

The bulk of our clients come from the Northeast, but I had people here this year from Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio ˆ— just all over the place. Most people hire me for a couple or three days, or longer, depending on how long they're staying in Maine.

In a hunting circumstance, I like to pick the hunters up at half past seven or quarter of eight in the morning so ideally we're in first cover by eight o'clock. We'll spend the day moving from one cover to the next, usually stopping someplace in the morning to have a snack or some coffee. Every time I put our dogs back in the kennel box on the truck they get a going over. I check their eyes, I check their feet, I check their bellies, check them for injuries or for debris in their eyes. Believe it or not, people notice that and they like it ˆ— they like the care that we take of our animals, so we're sort of educating them, too. Guides have to wear a lot of hats, and being a teacher is one of them. That's my favorite perhaps, that and being the entertainer.

I tell people that I have two offices: one is here at the house and the other is my extended cab, four-wheel-drive pickup. I spend an awful lot of time every year chasing bird covers. You're forever researching covers, because the last thing you want is to be in the truck with someone that's paying $250 a day and not have any new covers to take them to. I also do a tremendous amount of preseason scouting for my moose hunts. It just takes an enormous amount of preparation.

People have said to me, "This is great, you're a guide, so all you do is fish and hunt." And what they don't see is you up an hour and half before you're scheduled to pick them up feeding your dogs and getting them hydrated, tinkering with gear, looking at maps or laying out the day's schedule. Or you're gassing the boat up or making lunches or loading canoes and gear. And then they don't see the hour to an hour and a half at the end of the day: When they're sitting on the porch on their second scotch, you're still out there puttering with your gear.

We just think it's incumbent on us as guides to give people a good long day ˆ— in other words, good value for their money. Upland hunting and fishing rates are $250 a day. With moose hunts we charge a flat rate for a week, $1,350. If somebody shoots a moose on the first day, I'll get the dogs out and upland hunt, and I'll include that as part of the package, if they wish.

If you're in the working dog business, whether it's retrievers or upland dogs, you better have backups, because if one dog cuts a pad and is down for a week you're out of business. So we have five dogs in our kennel, and the going price for a finished bird dog in the state of Maine is $2,000 to $5,000. Then there are boats and trailers and paddles and floatation devices, and if you're doing backwoods hunts you've got buildings you have to maintain and pay taxes on or you have tents. It just takes a lot of stuff to do this. Anybody who's doing this at a professional level, I'd be surprised if you couldn't find $50,000 invested in gear and overhead.


Howell Copp, 47 Hunting supply store owner
Howell's Gun and Archery Center, Gray

Business is good right now. Of course, I haven't got figures in from the last couple of months yet, but for our fiscal year we've been up every month over last year. The overall number of licenses and the number of hunters is shrinking nationwide, but we seem to be on the grow, at least. All of our business isn't just from hunters. I have a lot of people who are collectors or target shooters and so on. So you hope that over the years you grow a little bit each year ˆ— your customer base gets broader and your inventory gets a little deeper and you get to be a little more well known.

There are fewer gun shops now than there ever used to be. I can name 15 that were some kind of competition that have gone out of business since I started 22 years ago. It's a fairly tough business ˆ— a lot of legislation, a lot of new rules that have put some [shops] out of business. There's a fairly low margin on new weapons, but it takes a lot of investment just the same because they're expensive.

I started in 1983. I was running a small, one-man operation for years but I slowly added to it. We used to do canoes and fishing stuff and then we decided later on to try and do a better job at the guns and archery and really specialize. We just didn't have enough money and space to do it all well. Now we'd probably surprise most people: We sell 2,000 to 2,500 guns a year and about 500 bows.

What we've tried to do is just keep doing a better job at every aspect of the business. We offer a lot of classes here, like a gun-in-the-house class every month that we've been doing for about 10 years now. It's very popular. We also do a lot of hunter safety programs that bring new people in the door. We have a pretty good kids' archery program that's in its 12th or 13th year now, so we get quite a number of kids who come in and shoot each week. That's a little bit of investing in the future there.

And we try to be a pro shop. We're competitive with Wal-Mart on prices, but we say that nobody can out-service us. We have an onsite gunsmith and we deal with a lot of used stuff. For our archery sales we build our own strings and cables and arrows, and do our setups and warranty work here. We give lessons that are included in the price of the bows, and free range time to get these people off on the right foot and shooting well so they're happy with their purchase and happy with equipment, and hopefully they'll bring friends back.

Obviously September, October, November and December are our busiest months, but we stay pretty busy through the winter. The slowest time actually is May and June because we don't have any fishing equipment. I think one thing that keeps us busy through January, February and March is a little bit of cabin fever. People can't get out and do as much. But once good weather hits everybody's working in their yard, going to camp, taking vacations and stuff like that until we get past the Fourth of July. Then it starts picking up every day.

A good part of that is that bear hunters start preparing in the end of July and they start hunting at the end of August. So if they're an archer and they're going to hunt bears in the fall, they're practicing and getting ready right after the Fourth of July and we're getting busier. This expanded archery season [from September to December in developed areas of Maine, where deer population is becoming a problem] has been a great help, that they start hunting deer shortly after the start of September. Most of my hunters are avid, so they take a lot of time to prepare and make sure their equipment is top notch and that they, themselves, are, too.


Matt Libby, 50 Camp owner
Libby Camps, T8 R9 (near Ashland)

Libby Camps started when the railroad came north in 1890. It was kind of slow the first few years, and then by 1896 the railroad came to Masardis, near Ashland, and that cut a day off the trip ˆ— the canoeing part ˆ— and we really started to pick up business. My great-grandfather and his sons started the business, and it really got off the ground through the 1920s. Back then it was more of an escape for wealthy people who took the whole summer off. My great-grandfather gave everything to his sons ˆ— my grandfather and his brother ˆ— and then my father took over in 1938. He ran it with my mother until he died in 59, and then she ran it by herself with her four boys until 1976. And then my wife and I bought her out.

If you grow up in paradise it doesn't necessarily mean you know it's paradise. I wanted to see the rest of the world. I went to the University of Maine and during the summers would work for different companies up and down the eastern seaboard. I had expense accounts and stuff like that, and I thought it was great for a while. Then I started to miss this. I guess I had to get away from it so I could appreciate it. My wife and I got married spring of 77, graduated college on May 20 and opened the camp May 21. We've been here ever since.

Our facility is split up into two parts, the main camp and the outpost camps. There were three outpost camps when I bought my mother out. Those are just remote log cabins on a pond all by themselves. We're up to 11 cabins now, all within 20 miles by air. Of course, we use seaplanes so that makes a big difference.

When we bought my mother out, none of the cabins at the main camp had full baths. All the cabins now have full baths, and each one of them is quite private. There's only eight cabins here spread out over a quarter-mile of lakefront. We take care of everything in terms of making the beds, cleaning them daily and keeping fires going. And then the main lodge is my wife's command center. She has her office there and she and my daughter-in-law do all the cooking. My son works for me ˆ— he's the fifth generation ˆ— and he and I are both pilots with our own planes that we use to fly people to outpost camps or one of 30 different outlying streams or ponds.

We had 1,001 people who came through the camp this year, and we're grossing about $500,000 a year. We do at least one week of bear hunting the first week of September. Sometimes we'll do two weeks depending on how the groups shake out. May through September is all fishing. And then October is really getting well known for bird hunting ˆ— grouse and woodcock. November is just deer hunters, and most of those are traditional hunters, some who have been coming to camp for 25 years or more.

It's kind of an aging population, the deer hunters. This week we have two hunters in their 20s, and among the rest the youngest would probably be 45, so we're a little worried about that aspect. But we're full, so it's hard to be worried when you're full.

We don't advertise for hunting, except for our website. We don't try to promote ourselves any differently, really, than my great-grandfather did. We're a traditional hunting, fishing, hiking and canoeing lodge. You're not going to find a tennis court. You're not going to find foosball games, billiards, ping pong or any of that sort of stuff here.

We've just expanded on our traditional activities. When I took over we were basically fishing the lake and wherever we could hike, because we didn't have a good road. Then, as the roads got better, we started to build outcamps and fish a lot of different areas. Then we got the plane and that opened up a lot of areas within a five- to 10-minute flight.

When I took over it was more men coming to fish, men coming to hunt. Now, there are a lot of women. I think having full baths, and having all the amenities and services much better, having very good guides and trained personnel and good equipment, puts us in the top echelon with fishing camps around the world. This isn't the Ritz, but it is probably the Ritz of the sporting camp world. A sporting camp is always going to be a log cabin, as far as I'm concerned. Certain things are rustic. We're not trying to make it a resort and get that part of the population.

We also don't make excuses for what we do. We might have a fisherman come that's an anti-hunter. I'm pretty well versed in wildlife and forestry and I'll tell people, "This is the way life is up here, don't try to change it." I don't try to turn them off at all, I try to explain to them why people hunt, why people fish and why people do anything up here.

But we're changing every day a little bit. We add value-added stuff, giving people better accommodations than they had last year, better food. We also work to educate people with our newsletter ˆ— we send out 5,000 or 6,000 newsletters each year. I write a lot of pro-hunting articles, not in-your-face articles that would turn people off, but trying to excite people. I think we all have to do a little bit of that. I'm also pushing the big reason people come hunting: It isn't necessarily to get a deer, it's where they hunt. It's the same thing with fishing: It isn't necessarily to get a trophy trout, it's the habitat they're in. It's the getaway.


Steve Jandreau, 35 Taxidermist
Wildlife Artistry, Portage

Probably 85% of my work is done for nonresidents. Not many of the local people around here can afford to have anything done by me, just because the economy always seems to be stagnant in this area. I get most of my referrals from sporting camp owners that cater to people coming from out of state to hunt moose, bear or what have you. I really try to cater to them and keep them happy.

I do an awful lot of bears and a lot of moose heads. The moose and bear populations up here have been growing for the last 10 to 15 years, and as such they've increased the amount of permits and the amount of hunting to try and control the population. I've taken in about 190 bears for the year, and that's just in September. I've got probably 15 or 20 moose heads, and I've got some antler mounts as well. The deer hunting in northern Maine is not as good as it used to be 25 years ago. In the early 70s the big thing was deer hunting, but the way they've cut the woods around here there's not a lot of winter habitat left and the deer population is not doing well. So there are not many guys that will come this far to hunt deer anymore.

Moose heads run $850-$900. Bear heads average around $400, but as far as the bears go I also do a lot of rugs that average around $600 and full mounts that run $1,500-$2,000. I've probably taken in about 300 pieces overall, which is really more than I can handle. Last year, when we had the referendum issue and I was afraid of going out of business ˆ— which I'm sure I would have if it had gone through ˆ— I took in as much work as I could get, so I've got quite a backlog of work at the moment.

Right now, for the pieces that are coming in I'm telling people 12 to 15 months turnaround. When I first started it was six to eight months, but I was probably doing 40 pieces a year back then. I'm a little concerned about taking too long to get people's stuff back, but on the other hand, most don't mind waiting ˆ— or paying, for that matter.

I never thought I'd have enough work that I'd be hiring help and looking for more space to work in. I have seasonal part-time help right now to get me closer to where I'd like to be. But this is not a common line of work, so it's hard to find somebody who wants to do it and would be good at it. It's something you have to be very fussy about because it's very meticulous work.

I learned taxidermy as a part-time job after school. Every night after school and on Saturdays I would apprentice for another guy in town, and I did that off and on for six or eight years. I worked for another gentleman in the early 90s, then got out of it for a year. I had a lot of my old customers ask me to do new stuff for them and I really missed the line of work, so since 1998 this is all I've done for a living.

I really enjoy the work itself, being able to recreate these pieces so they look as lifelike as possible, and I get a lot of satisfaction from a customer being thrilled with the piece. And the other aspect is being self-employed: I've always loved working for myself, even though it has its moments of being overwhelming, and long days, long hours.

It's hard to estimate the exact number of hours I work on a piece. Say I take in a moose head today. I'd have to work on caping it, fleshing it and salting it, and then it has to be sent out to be made into leather. I'd get it back in about six to eight months. Yesterday, I put a moose head together and spent most of the day preparing the skin and the form, bolting the antlers on the form. I have to let it dry for 10 days, then I have to clean it up, groom it and paint it, and then it's ready for the customer to pick up. Everything is done in stages, and you have to work on a few pieces at the same time. To make any money at it you couldn't wait for one piece to dry and finish before you started another one.