West Virginia's bear hunters might play third fiddle to deer and turkey hunters, but they make up for their also-ran status by spending money.

A soon-to-be-published study shows that bear hunters' annual economic impact totals more than $51 million. While that sum pales next to snow skiing's estimated $250 million impact, it beats the $49 million attributed to whitewater rafting and far outstrips the $7.8 million generated by the Hatfield-McCoy recreational trail complex.

The numbers came to light as Chris Ryan, principal bear biologist for the state Division of Natural Resources, finalized the research for his doctoral dissertation.

"We wanted to find out some things about West Virginia's bear hunters," Ryan said. "We wanted to know how many hunted with dogs, how many hunted without dogs, how many were bowhunters, what their success rates were, where they hunted, and what the economic impact of their hunting was."

The study - based on 496 responses to 1,746 mailed questionnaires - revealed that only 24 percent of all bear hunters use dogs, but they account for three-fourths of all bear hunting-related spending.

"We found that hunters spend a little more than $20 million a year to maintain their dogs - purchasing the animals, feeding them, kenneling them and giving them veterinary care," Ryan said. "In addition, we found that those same hunters spend about 37 days a year training their dogs, and that they spent an additional $18 million a year just on training costs."

In West Virginia, dog training is essentially hunting without killing. Hunters drive around on back roads with a truckload of dogs until one of the hounds picks up a bear's scent. The hunter then releases the hounds to trail and corner the bear. When the hunter reaches the scene, he calls off the dogs and lets the bear run away.

If the survey's numbers are accurate, approximately 5,500 Mountain State sportsmen hunt bears with dogs. The average hunter spent $4,727 a year on dog maintenance and training, for a direct-spending total of $26 million.

Randy Childs, a Ph.D. economist at West Virginia University, arrived at the final $38 million economic- impact figure for dog-using hunters by calculating how each directly spent dollar would be re-spent by feed store owners, veterinarians and the like.

West Virginia's bear hunters might play third fiddle to deer and turkey hunters, but they make up for their also-ran status by spending money.

A soon-to-be-published study shows that bear hunters' annual economic impact totals more than $51 million. While that sum pales next to snow skiing's estimated $250 million impact, it beats the $49 million attributed to whitewater rafting and far outstrips the $7.8 million generated by the Hatfield-McCoy recreational trail complex.

The numbers came to light as Chris Ryan, principal bear biologist for the state Division of Natural Resources, finalized the research for his doctoral dissertation.

"We wanted to find out some things about West Virginia's bear hunters," Ryan said. "We wanted to know how many hunted with dogs, how many hunted without dogs, how many were bowhunters, what their success rates were, where they hunted, and what the economic impact of their hunting was."

The study - based on 496 responses to 1,746 mailed questionnaires - revealed that only 24 percent of all bear hunters use dogs, but they account for three-fourths of all bear hunting-related spending.

"We found that hunters spend a little more than $20 million a year to maintain their dogs - purchasing the animals, feeding them, kenneling them and giving them veterinary care," Ryan said. "In addition, we found that those same hunters spend about 37 days a year training their dogs, and that they spent an additional $18 million a year just on training costs."

In West Virginia, dog training is essentially hunting without killing. Hunters drive around on back roads with a truckload of dogs until one of the hounds picks up a bear's scent. The hunter then releases the hounds to trail and corner the bear. When the hunter reaches the scene, he calls off the dogs and lets the bear run away.

If the survey's numbers are accurate, approximately 5,500 Mountain State sportsmen hunt bears with dogs. The average hunter spent $4,727 a year on dog maintenance and training, for a direct-spending total of $26 million.

Randy Childs, a Ph.D. economist at West Virginia University, arrived at the final $38 million economic- impact figure for dog-using hunters by calculating how each directly spent dollar would be re-spent by feed store owners, veterinarians and the like.

"We were very conservative in how we used 'multipliers,'" Childs said. "Some people like to toss out multipliers of five to seven times [the direct expenditure]. We used a more conservative model developed by the U.S. Forest Service and widely used by state governments and universities. Our typical multipliers were in the 1.5 to 2.5 range."

Childs said he and Ryan also were conservative in the expenditures they chose to count. "For instance, we didn't count deer hunters who also bought bear licenses just in case they might happen upon a bear. There was no way to ask them to break out their spending for the portion of time they might be bear hunting, so we just left those statistics alone and concentrated on people whose sole purpose was bear hunting."

The survey revealed that hunters who actually kill bears have far less of an economic impact than those who chase them for dog-training purposes. State-

resident hunters contribute about $7.5 million to the economy during bear-

harvest seasons; nonresidents kick in about $1.3 million. Equipment purchases - firearms, tracking collars, GPS locators and the like - generate another $4.2 million.

Researcher Ryan acknowledged that the final total of $52,847,605 might surprise some people. "The numbers didn't really surprise me, though. I've been involved with bear hunters for quite some time now, and I know that, by and large, they are very serious about it. They respect the sport, and they spend a lot of money on it," he said.

Ryan said the study "supplies evidence that hunting in general has an incredible economic impact on the state."

Data collected in 2006 by the U.S. Census Bureau show that West Virginians spend more than $900 million a year on hunting, fishing and other forms of wildlife-related recreation. Hunting accounts for the lion's share of that total.

"It's an impact most people aren't aware of," Ryan said. "[My research] just helps to re-emphasize how much money hunting generates for West Virginia."

Reach John McCoy at johnmc...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1231.