Hunter Sample Survey Estimates 1976 to Current

Incomplete data:
- Data for incomplete survey responses that could not be assigned to a WMU but could be assigned to a region are designated by the region number followed by two zeros in the WMU field (ex. WMU 600 for Region 6). WMU 770 and 780 are used to capture incomplete data for Region 7A and 7B, respectively. Prior to 2018, 700 was used for all of Region 7.
- Data for incomplete survey responses that could not be assigned to a WMU or a region is designated by WMU 900.

Hunter Estimates:
- The sum of WMU estimated hunters does not equal the regional total, and the sum of regional estimated hunters does not equal the provincial total. This is because hunters often hunt in more than one WMU or more than one region, so number of hunters is re-calculated at the regional and provincial levels to avoid overcounting.

Kill ratios:
- The “unknown” sex/age class was added in 2018. Prior to 2018, no data will be available in this class.

Deer:
- Prior to 1986, Mule Deer and White-Tailed Deer hunting was not differentiated, and collected as ‘DEER’.

General:
- There is some noise in the data, especially in the earlier years (ex. caribou hunting on Vancouver Island). Around 1991, a filter was added to the HS system that blocked data for areas where the animal either did not exist or there were no hunting seasons to reduce these errors.

The Hunter Sample Survey (part of the Harvest Questionnaire) is sent to a sample of hunters who purchased hunting and species licences. Data collected through the survey is used to estimate the number of hunters, hunt days, and harvests for each species by WMU, region and provincially.

Data Sources:
- 2018 to present - survey response data is entered into, stored, compiled and analyzed in a MS Access database
- Prior to 2018 - survey response data was entered into a MS Access database, stored, compiled and analyzed on an IBM Mainframe, and exported to MS Access for reporting