CD1, I'll be generalizing a lot, so bear with me. In many of the more eastern states, with little or no ranching as in the private lands of the west, it was historically common for hunting to be sort of a non-issue insofar as trespass. Owners were more concerned with their croplands, not the woods and river bottoms.
I guess a person who has not grown up farming and ranching in a private-lands state has difficulty in understanding the strength of emotions if some stranger is seen wandering across a pasture. I've been known to cloud up and rain all over somebody who's wandering loose without a keeper across my pasture. Back at the old place near Austintatious, after paying a $3,400 tax bill, I just really didn't appreciate some doofus's "excuse" of, "I didn't know anybody owned this..."
You buy or inherit land. You build fence, buy cows, build water systems and barns. Cross-fencing so you can rotate the cattle from one pasture to another and not over-graze anywhere. Haul hay, buy feed for winter. Pray to God you get some rain. Pray to God you don't get a serious cold snap when calves are dropping--but it comes. Try pulling a breech-birth calf when it's two degrees out, at 3AM. In the old days, we fought screw-worms. You get a lot of scars on your hands. You do a lot of prayin' that something bad doesn't happen--dunno what, but just wait. There's always something broke, and needing repairing. One eye on the banker, one eye on the tax man, and t'other'n' on God. Hmmm...Yeah, I know.
If you can run an animal unit (cow and calf) on ten acres and you get an 85% calf crop and calves bring $400, that's $34/acre/year. Gross, before expenses. A high-tech fella in Austin can make $85 grand in salary. How many acres ya gotta have to net that? If you sell the land to Jane Fonda, for $1,000 an acre, you can drag more interest from a CD while sitting on the porch than you can by working from daylight to dark. Don't ask me why folks ranch--it ain't for the money.
But deer-hunting money can buy a "new" good-used pickup...
In the western states, "newbies" with fat billfolds are buying up private lands adjacent to national lands, and closing or trying to close off historical-road access. They're running from the cities, but bringing their city ways with them. "Five acres, five miles from town." is the way some folks have named a portion of the process. And then there are the Ted Turner types...
And if you get around that, a Clinton comes along and by Executive Order closes off anothe few million acres to that evil thing known as "hunting".
All this has been coming on for 30-40 years. I saw it coming, and built up my own little deal here. Too many people, too much loose money, I guess.
The larger problem is that if there is less and less hunting, there is less and less money to protect wildlife (game wardens, etc.) or enhance habitat. This latter helps non-game animals as well as the game we hunt, including songbirds.
Enuf,
Art