Year in and year out, the whitetail deer reigns as America’s No. 1 big-game animal, with an annual harvest of roughly 6 million animals. Figures from 2015 as reported in the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s 2017 Industry Intelligence Report put the tally at 5,801,978.

In 2015, 47% of the harvest was made up of bucks. It is estimated that the average annual deer harvest provides nearly 336 million pounds of meat, which equates to 1.34 billion meals. At $9 per pound, the venison harvest provides an economic impact of $3.02 billion.

Here are the top states and a comparison between the 2013 and 2015 harvests. 

A few notes on the hunters who racked up the 5.8 million deer harvest in 2015:

- An estimated 10.9 million deer hunters went afield

- They spent 167.6 million days hunting, an average of 15.5 days per hunter

- Their average age is 45.2

- Males make up 88.1% of the deer-hunting ranks

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