The State of the Harvest

Hunting in the United States remains an important part of our culture and tradition. Working with state and federal agencies across the United States, we compiled reported harvests of wildlife during the 2019-2020 through 2024-2025 hunting seasons, then quantified the amount of wild meat provided from these harvests and the associated benefits it provides. We estimated that harvests during the 2024-2025 hunting season resulted in almost 223,000 tons of wild meat. This meat provided over 2 billion servings and over 931 million person-days of protein. The estimated replacement cost of this meat was valued at almost $3.3 billion. In addition to benefits previously identified, wild meat from well-managed and sustainable hunting in the United States is also an important contributor to the provisioning of nutritious food and the economy.