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NYS DEC Licensing Agencies

Jesse Anderson

Patterns

            This map shows the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Licensing agencies compared to population density. These agencies are where people can buy hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. One feature that is noticeable on this map is that there are some areas and counties that don’t have any licensing agencies listed. Some of these counties include St. Lawrence, Steuben, Yates, Schuyler, Seneca, Tioga, Warren, Washington and Tompkins County. Some other counties that don’t have any licensing agencies are Sullivan, Ulster, Westchester, and Suffolk County. Another noticeable feature of this map is that there are areas where the number of licensing agencies is very sparse. These areas would include portions of the Southern Tier. More specifically just west of the Hudson Valley in Delaware, Greene, Otsego, Chenango, and Cortland County. Another region in New York that has this sparse distribution of DEC licensing agencies is in the Adirondacks. Some of the counties that have very few licensing agencies in the Adirondacks include Lewis, Herkimer, Hamilton, Essex, Franklin, and Warren. The other pattern that is illustrated by this map is population density. The majority of the counties that have no licensing agencies are also the counties with the lowest population density.

Analysis

            New York State has a large following when it comes to the outdoor sports such as hunting, fishing, and trapping. New York offers people wishing to participate in these activities with many opportunities to do so. The Adirondack and Catskill Mountains offer many hunting, fishing, and trapping opportunities to sportsmen. Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, The Finger Lakes, and the St. Lawrence River all provide vast fishing opportunities as well. The map shows that New York State has a vast number of Licensing Agencies across the state. A good reason for this would be to the large following of outdoor sports enthusiasts in the state. And this is also due to the many opportunities that New York State has to offer in terms of the landscape of the state. The distribution of agencies across the state is somewhat scattered and doesn’t seem to follow much of a pattern but there are clusters of licensing agencies. The densest clusters of these agencies are typically centered around cities. Some examples of this can be seen in Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, and Ithaca. The reason for this is the simple fact that these cities would have more businesses that would sell sporting licenses. Also these areas also have a higher population density. These clusters aren’t located solely around bigger cities. Other cities and towns in less developed and more rural areas have similar clusters of licensing agencies. Some examples of this can be seen in Watertown, Plattsburgh, Malone, and Utica. While these towns and cities don’t have nearly the number of agencies as bigger cities, they still have a significant number of agencies. The counties that have the most agencies tend to have the highest population density and these towns that aren’t quite as large don’t have the high population density which is another reason for the lower number of licensing agencies.

            This data came from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The data was collected in February of 2010. The data is available on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s website and is viewed in Google Earth as a .kml file.