Few activities are as universally practiced across cultures and age groups as hunting, and perhaps big game hunting especially. This is true whether in South America, Africa, Europe, Asia — or Minnesota, where, long before statehood, youth joined their elders to pursue elk, woodland caribou, moose and deer.
So it remains today, with an asterisk that draws attention to what is believed to be an increasing interest in hunting among women.
This is important, as is greater participation in hunting among minorities, because the hunting population is dominated by baby boomers who are aging out of the pastime. If their numbers aren't replaced, the thinking goes, by the traditional hunter cohort — white males — in addition to greater numbers of women and minorities, hunting and the funding it provides for conservation are doomed to further diminishment.
A review of current Minnesota deer license sales underscores that girls show a strong interest in hunting relative to boys. But the data also indicate that something happens as girls age that causes some of them to drop out of hunting.
Some young men in their 20s and 30s beset by family and career obligations also put hunting (and other activities) on a back burner for a while. But many men return to hunting, while many women seemingly don't — a conundrum that state, federal and nonprofit hunting-recruitment experts must address if the percentage of women among hunters is going to stabilize at higher levels.
Consider:
Sales of resident Minnesota firearms deer licenses — the largest license type — this fall to adult males numbered 292,481, while adult females purchased 48,319 licenses, or about 16% of those bought by men.
Youth firearms (no fee) license sales, meanwhile, tell a more upbeat story about interest in deer hunting among girls: 12,452 of these licenses were issued to boys, while 5,160 were issued to girls, or about 41% of the number issued to boys.
