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Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info ### I would like to contribute One Time Monthly Yearly Join Now ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on May 23, 2021 in a Facebook post: The sale of more than 600,000 Wisconsin deer licenses shows that Wisconsin’s hunters are the “eighth largest army in the world.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") * Military * Guns * Wisconsin * Facebook posts ![\\"Madison](\\" By Madison Czopek June 6, 2022 # Deer licenses sold in Wisconsin don\'t prove the state has one of the world’s largest militaries #### If Your Time is short * Wisconsin sold about 569,000 deer licenses that included gun privileges in 2020. * Wisconsin sells nonresident licenses for gun deer hunting, so there’s no way to know that the people who purchased licenses to hunt with firearms in Wisconsin are state residents. * A group of 600,000 armed hunters wouldn’t constitute a strikingly large global force, as the post claimed. See the sources for this fact-check You might not picture a troop of Wisconsin deer hunters when thinking about global military powers, but some social media users are out to change that. \"There were over 600,000 hunters this season in the state of Wisconsin,\" read a 2021 Facebook post. \"Allow me to restate that number: 600,000! Over the last several months, Wisconsin’s hunters became the eighth largest army in the world.\" The post went on to claim that although 600,000 people were \"deployed to the woods of a single American state, Wisconsin, to hunt with firearms … NO ONE WAS KILLED.\" The post began amassing more shares in recent days following a series of deadly mass shootings around the U.S. In addition to Wisconsin, the post said that 750,000 people hunted in Pennsylvania and another 700,000 people hunted in Michigan — all of whom took to the woods and later \"returned home safely.\" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The sweeping claims overstate what can be learned from deer hunting licenses and overlook what we know about the comparative size of military forces around the world. Deer hunting license sales and the number of firearm hunters in a state Wisconsin reported that 820,299 deer hunting licenses were sold for the 2020 season, which would have been the most recent season when the post was first shared on May 23, 2021. While this number surpasses the 600,000 figure shared in the Facebook post, it included bow and crossbow licenses, not just gun hunting licenses, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Of the total number of deer licenses sold, 569,203 were for gun privileges, according to the preliminary license sale figures released on Dec. 1, 2020. That’s almost 31,000 people short of the \"army\" of 600,000 deer hunters the Facebook post claimed live in Wisconsin. However, there’s no proof that each of the people who purchased licenses to hunt with firearms in Wisconsin are state residents. Wisconsin sells nonresident licenses for gun deer hunting. The department said nonresident license sales decreased in 2020, likely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not give an indication of the usual number of these sales. ![](\\" The department did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for finalized numbers or information about the number of Wisconsin residents who hunt with firearms. #### Featured Fact-check ![](\\" ![](\\" Tim Walz stated on September 14, 2024 in a speech “In Project 2025, you’re going to have to register with a new federal agency when you get pregnant.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") By Samantha Putterman • September 17, 2024 The Facebook post also inflated the number of deer hunters in Michigan. Ed Golder, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said that in 2020, Michigan had 616,235 unique deer hunters, or individuals who bought a deer license of any type for the season. Nearly 80% of them — or 488,422 hunters — participated in the regular firearm deer season, Golder said. We did not find data on the number of deer hunters in Pennsylvania in 2020, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission did not respond to PolitiFact’s information request. The post was also incorrect by suggesting that \"no one died\" while hunting. In Wisconsin, there were 18 hunting-related gun incidents that included one death during the 2020 hunting season. In Michigan in 2020, there were six hunting-related gun injuries, including two fatalities. The most recent incident report available for Pennsylvania was from 2019, when 21 hunting-related gun incidents were reported, including three deaths. Comparative size of world military forces Even if 600,000 armed hunters lived in Wisconsin, the group wouldn’t constitute a strikingly large global force, as the post claimed. There aren’t many country-by-country comparisons of military force size, but 2021 data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies indicates that more than 10 countries have at least 1 million military personnel. An army of 600,000 wouldn’t make the top 15 largest military forces when comparing estimated total military personnel, according to 2022 data from Global Firepower, an organization that evaluates military strength and assigns countries rankings. Global Firepower’s data shows that more than 10 countries have forces in which the total number of military personnel is estimated to exceed 1 million. This includes the organization’s highest-ranked militaries overall: the U.S., Russia and China. Based only on the number of military personnel, Bangladesh has about 7 million, India has about 5.13 million, and China has 3.13 million, per Global Firepower’s metrics. The next five are: Brazil, North Korea, the U.S., Venezuela and Taiwan — all with 1.5 million or more total military personnel. Our ruling A post claimed that the sale of more than 600,000 Wisconsin deer licenses shows that Wisconsin’s hunters are the \"eighth largest army in the world.\" The post inflates the number of gun deer hunting licenses sold in Wisconsin for the 2020 hunting season by more than 30,000. There’s also no indication that each of the roughly 569,000 gun deer licenses sold were sold to residents of the state. Some were sold to non-residents. Even if Wisconsin had 600,000 deer hunters who use firearms, the group would not be the eighth largest army in the world. We rate this claim False. PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. #### Read About Our Process The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter ### Our Sources Facebook post, May 23, 2021 Email interview with Ed Golder, a public information officer for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, June 2, 2022 Michigan Department of Natural Resources, \"Michigan Hunting Related Incident Summary 2021,\" Dec. 15, 2021 Michigan Department of Natural Resources, \"Michigan Hunting Related Incident Summary 2020,\" Sept. 20, 2021 Pennsylvania Game Commission, \"Hunting-Related Shooting Incidents,\" accessed June 2, 2022 Pennsylvania Game Commission, \"Hunting-Related Shooting Incident (HRSI) Annual Report 2019,\" May 2020 Pennsylvania Game Commission, \"Hunting License Sales Report,\" accessed June 2, 2022 Pennsylvania Game Commission, \"License Types,\" accessed June 2, 2022 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, \"Nine-Day Gun Deer Hunt Harvest Totals And License Sales Now Available,\" Dec. 1, 2020 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, \"2021 Nine-Day Gun Deer Hunt Harvest Totals And License Sales Now Available,\" Nov. 30, 2021 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, \"2021 Hunter Education Annual Report,\" accessed June 2, 2022 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, \"Wisconsin hunting incident summary - Year 2021,\" accessed June 3, 2022 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, \"Wisconsin hunting incident summary - Year 2020,\" accessed June 3, 2022 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - Agent Training, \"Conservation Patron License,\" accessed June 2, 2022 GoWildAgent.wi.gov, \"What is the Conservation Patron License?\" accessed June 3, 2022 GoWildAgent.wi.gov, \"Deer License and Privilege Information,\" accessed June 3, 2022 Business Insider, \"This is how the US and Iran rank among the world\'s 25 most powerful militaries,\" Jan. 7, 2020 Census.gov, \"National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, & Wildlife-Associated Recreation (FHWAR): 2016,\" October 2018 Pennsylvania Game Commission, \"Hunting License Sales Report,\" accessed June 3, 2022 Go Erie, \"Albion man recovering from gunshot to chest in latest of 3 hunting accidents in western Pa,\" Dec. 2, 2021 Lancaster Online, \"Elizabethtown man\'s death is third hunting-related fatal shooting in November: Game commission,\" Dec. 3, 2021 WJAC, \"​​Coroner identifies hunter killed in Jackson Township, was accidentally shot by relative,\" Nov. 27, 2021 The Meadville Tribune, \"Corry man killed in hunting accident,\" Nov. 23, 2021 The Military Balance, \"International comparisons of defence expenditure and military personnel,\" Feb. 24, 2021 ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by Madison Czopek ![](\\" logo-black-01/b6cedac93f6e57c68ecc025e5ec29d57.jpg\\") ![](\\" logo-black-01/438dbf066033f99de07598cbcc77ddcb.jpg\\") Threads posts stated on September 13, 2024 in a post on Threads: “ABC lost $27M in ad revenue after advertisers pulled ads from the network after the way they hosted the debate\" on Sept. 10. ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Madison Czopek • September 15, 2024 ![](\\" logo-black-01/b6cedac93f6e57c68ecc025e5ec29d57.jpg\\") ![](\\" logo-black-01/438dbf066033f99de07598cbcc77ddcb.jpg\\") Threads posts stated on September 12, 2024 in a post on Threads: An image shows Travis Kelce responding to Elon Musk X post that followed Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madison Czopek • September 13, 2024 ![](\\" black/4590875651af69b2c789ceab409664dd.jpg\\") ![](\\" black/72988380e8c8bd188dc360d11552e4a0.jpg\\") X posts stated on September 3, 2024 in a video posted on X: On June 7, 2011, Kamala Harris was involved in a San Francisco hit-and-run crash that injured a woman named Alicia Brown. ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Madison Czopek • September 5, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Social Media stated on August 29, 2024 in a post on Instagram: “BREAKING: Illegal Aliens in San Diego, California, tried to hijack 2 school buses filled with children.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madison Czopek • September 4, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on August 25, 2024 in a Facebook post: “There’s no such thing as menopause.” ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Madison Czopek • August 30, 2024 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on August 24, 2024 in an Instagram post: World Economic Forum “document confirms 6 billion humans will die in 2025.” ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Madison Czopek • August 29, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Bob Casey stated on August 22, 2024 in a speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention: “Prices are up because these corporations are scheming to drive them up.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Madison Czopek • August 28, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" JD Vance stated on August 16, 2024 in a post on X: “Kamala Harris wants to give $25,000 to illegal aliens to buy American homes.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madison Czopek • August 22, 2024 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on August 4, 2024 in an Instagram post: “The NFL will now use facial recognition at every stadium to verify the identity of everyone at the game.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madison Czopek • August 16, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on August 12, 2024 in a post on Facebook: Dr. Leo Ferreira, a cancer researcher shown in a video clip, was on the plane that crashed in Brazil on Aug. 9. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madison Czopek • August 15, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Jesse Watters stated on August 6, 2024 in a segment on \"Jesse Watters Primetime\": Minnesota Gov. 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The sale of more than 600000 Wisconsin deer licenses shows that Wisconsin’s hunters are the eighth largest army in the world