The West: Where women love to hunt

I am rarely at a loss for words, particularly when it comes to the latest stats on women hunters (I'm thinking here of my last screed on the topic). But I've come across some new data that I'm not quite sure how to interpret.

Back in September, a friend turned me on to this study by Southwick Associates, "A Portrait of Hunters and Hunting License Trends: National Report." The study is based on actual hunting license data from 17 states, which means its basic numbers are super sturdy - an actual count, not an extrapolation based on a small sample size.

The results affirm the basic gender breakdown of hunters found in the most recent U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's National Survey: Nine percent of hunters nationwide are women.

But it goes on break the numbers down by region, and that's where we see that the West has the highest percentage of women hunters - 13 percent, which is nearly half again the national average. The Southeast has the lowest percentage of women hunters - 7 percent.

Here are the charts from the study: Read more...


I'm just not quite sure how to explain this without falling into a giant stinking vat of stereotypes about independent Western women, but something's definitely going on here.

As you could see from the map above, California wasn't one of the states in the study. But from where I sit, I can't imagine we'd drag down the numbers if we were included in it.

When I went duck hunting the past three weekends, I saw at least three other women at the refuge check station at 0-dark-30 each time.

I'm seeing a strong interest among women here to start procuring meat with a gun instead of a grocery cart, based on participation I've seen in women's shooting and hunter ed events.

And if I want to organize a girls' weekend out (in the field, not on the town, of course), I have so many hunting girlfriends I could invite that it would be no problem pulling it off.

But none of that answers the question why, which is of course what I want to know. Anyone else out there have any thoughts on the matter?

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Number of women hunters: A super duper amazing explosion

OMG, the number of women hunters has increased 50 percent in the past five years???

So say the stats cited in this Scripps newspaper story, but as much as I'd love to get excited about it, I can't.

Reason No. 1: I got these stats from the source, the National Sporting Goods Association, this summer. While the Scripps story says the number of women hunting with firearms jumped from 2 million to 3 million, you need to know that someone rounded way too generously; the actual numbers in the survey are 2.4 million to 3 million. That turns the 50 percent increase into a 23 percent increase. Read more...
Here's how it looks when you graph it out:


Reason No. 2: The number of people surveyed helps determine the accuracy of a survey, and the NSGA researcher who sent me they survey cautioned that because the number of women surveyed is so small (he didn't say how small), "any change is magnified." (This helps explain why those numbers jump around so much from year to year.)

I'm a real numbers geek, so I talk to folks about this quite a bit, and I'm told that the most impeccable numbers on hunting come from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's National Survey, which comes out every five years. Those folks start their survey with 60,000 households, which is enormous (vastly larger than most surveys you'll see during elections, which tend to run maybe 3,000-4,000-5,000 at best).

Here's what the National Survey says about the numbers of women and girl hunters over the past couple decades (if you click on it, you can see a larger version):


Notice how the overall numbers are smaller? NSGA says 3 million women hunted with firearms in 2006; USFWS says it's more like 1.2 million. Much as I'd like to believe we number 3 million, I'm putting my faith in the USFWS numbers.

Why am I being such a party pooper? Because there's going to be a flush of stories now based on these weaker numbers, with many just repeating the highly misleading "2 million to 3 million" claim, and that irritates me.

I think what's going on with women in hunting is really important, important enough that we shouldn't diminish its meaning with inflated claims: Women are becoming an accepted part of the hunting scene, so much so that we now have real options in women's hunting clothing, and we are featured regularly and prominently in hunting television. The number of girls getting into hunting appears likely to boost our numbers overall in coming years - a testament to all the moms and dads taking kids of both genders hunting.

And we put an important face on hunting: Because we are not the stereotypical hunter, non-hunters are less inclined to make snap judgments about what we do, more likely to stop and listen to why we hunt.

Sorry guys. I know that's not fair to you. But trust me - it serves you well. In an increasingly urbanized society that can't relate to guns or hunting at all, this willingness to listen to non-stereotypical hunters matters: The more non-hunters understand us, the less inclined they'll be to want to take away our rights to feed ourselves the way we do.

I really do hope that the next National Survey shows an increase in women hunters that's even a fraction of what NSGA numbers show. That's something I could cheer without reservation.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Cabela's Cazadora Wader - coincidence?

So Cabela's is coming out with a new women's wader, and they're calling it the Cabela's Cazadora Wader. Coincidence?

No. And today's the day I finally get to tell you all about it.

Remember back in October when my friend Sarah and I went to Cabela's in Reno to shop for women's waterfowl gear and came home disappointed? I wrote later that Cabela's had responded with both apologies for the experience and a discussion about improving women's hunting clothing.

But that wasn't the whole story. Read more...
What I've been (painfully) keeping under my hat all this time is that they invited Sarah and me to do product testing on a new, built-from-the-ground-up women's wader. In short, after all that complaining about having to put up with ill-fitting men's waders, Sarah and I would be helping to design waders made for us - and for all our duck hunting sisters out there.

Right away we started working with Cabela’s Product Manager Rob Burnett and Purchasing Specialist Joe Haddock to talk about what we wanted, and the main thing - aside from the obvious, like boots made for women's feet and length made for women's height - was Velcro straps. We were sick of how the buckles on waders sat right where we shouldered our shotguns. (Sure, you could design them to sit lower, but then look where they'd be - no thanks!)

So they got busy, made two prototypes and popped them in the mail to us in early November, with the request that we use them as much as possible. Sarah and I tore open the boxes when they arrived at our houses and tried them on.

We were really excited because they actually fit us!

But there were problems. The boots were freakishly tight on our calves - and neither of us has particularly big calves. The handwarmer pocket was so high that putting our hands in there was pretty much resting them on our boobs. (I know, men are thinking, "What's wrong with that?" But seriously, walk around with your hands grasping your pecs for a while and see if that doesn't feel a little awkward.) There was no extra padding on the knees - a feature we've loved in our other waders. And Sarah really wished it had come with a belt for safety.

We each sent them emails outlining the problems, and Rob and Joe were actually delighted that we'd offered such detailed critiques, because that's what they needed to make the product successful.

But that wasn't the coolest thing about working with them. What I really loved was how excited they were about the whole project. While Cabela's has a couple women's waders in its product line, this was the first time they'd built them from the ground up, rather than scaling down the men's product, and Rob and Joe were really enthused about it.

The interesting thing is this is what all the women's hunting clothing companies I love so much (Prois, SHE Outdoors, Foxy Huntress) talk about - the fact that they build women's hunting clothes from the ground up, rather than just shrinking men's versions. Now we had a major retailer doing the same thing - for waterfowl gear, which is the one area the women's companies haven't touched.

Rob and Joe sent us Version 2 of the waders in late December and they were just about perfect. I had some different-sized women friends try them on, including one who's much shorter than I am and another who's much taller and bigger, just to see if the size would accommodate many different body types. It did.

Then Sarah and I happily hunted the entire rest of the season in them, right down to closing day. All that was left to do after that was compile a little wish list about other features we wanted and put them into production.

And of course, we needed to do a photo shoot, because our story is going to be featured in the Cabela's waterfowl catalog that will come out this summer. So I enlisted one of my students - Andrew Nixon, who's an excellent photographer - and the three of us went out to the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area and spent a beautiful Saturday morning hamming it up.




Now I really hope all my fellow women duck hunters out there will buy a pair of these waders when they're released this summer, and not just because it's a good product.

Why? It would be very easy for companies to ignore women waterfowlers because there are only about 131,000 of us nationwide - one-twentieth the number of male waterfowlers. (Click on that chart if you'd like to see details).

But Cabela's didn't ignore us. In fact, when I wrote a snotty blog post - complete with video! - about how disappointed we were with their selection, their immediate response was, "Work with us to solve the problem."

The only advice of ours they didn't take was the name for the waders. We came up with a few ideas, but they didn't like them, so they're the ones who suggested Cabela's Cazadora Wader.

And what do I get out of this? Nothing more than a fat head and a pair of waders (well, more than one if you count dud versions). Cabela's hasn't paid me a dime - the money continues to flow the other way, from me to Cabela's, just like it does with the rest of you.

I am recommending this product for the same reason I've recommended other women's hunting clothing: because it works. I'm just a little bit extra excited about the Cabela's Cazadora Wader because the reason I know it works is that Sarah and I helped make it work.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

Hunters, religion and politics

Data huntress strikes again!

About a week ago, I wondered out loud where hunters fit on the political and religious spectrum. What sparked the question was news that Lakota Industries had introduced a "Sarah Cuda" bow honoring Sarah Palin's "historic achievement" and "all the women who bear the responsibility of family and work while strengthening the moral fiber of society."

How many hunters would that message appeal to? I wondered. What percentage of hunters are potential Sarah Palin supporters (i.e. conservative)? And what percentage are, like Palin, evangelical?

Today I got the answers from Mark Duda, executive director of Responsive Management, a Virginia-based outdoors research firm. The firm did a survey in 2006 that asked precisely those questions as part of its research on hunters' and anglers' attitudes toward global warming.

Now before I present the data, I'm going to confess one sin of data crunching.

Responsive Management only surveyed hunters and anglers (1,031 of them, to be precise). But I really wanted to know how our numbers compared with general public's numbers, so I went out and got the best data I could get.

Unfortunately, it is a no-no to mix data collected through different methods, because you can't achieve a precise comparison. But I figured it was better than looking at our numbers in a vacuum, so I did it anyway. And some of the results are kind of interesting. I'm curious to hear what you folks think of it.

So here it is, with a few comments here and there. If you find the type too small to see clearly, just click on the image to get an enlargement:

Evangelical Christians: This one didn't surprise me at all.

Political leanings: What surprised me here was how closely our conservative and moderate numbers matched the general population's. Then I remembered 7 percent of Duda's respondents refused to answer this question - those people might add to the conservative numbers.

The other surprise here? One in ten hunters/anglers is a liberal. (Probably all those catch-and-release folks right? ;-)

Voting rates: Hunters and anglers hit the ballot box (or at least tell surveyors they do) in MUCH higher percentages than the general public - and the difference is big enough that I'm not terribly worried about my apples-and-oranges data comparison here.

Interesting: Less than a week ago, U.S. News & World Report published a story about McCain's and Obama's efforts to woo the hook-and-bullet crowd. This data shows why we matter: We can have a disproportionaly high impact.

Presidential pick in '04: The only surprise here is that 29 percent of hunters and anglers admitted to voting for Kerry - certainly a much higher percentage than those who describe themselves as liberals. (And by the way, I made these charts in Excel and could not for the life of me figure out how to make Kerry blue and Bush red on this chart - for once, I was not being intentionally provocative.)

(A quick postscript in response to a couple comments: Sixteen percent of respondents in the Responsive Management survey refused to say who they voted for in 2004 - that's a pretty big question mark in the results.)

So what do I take from all of this? I keep going back to what former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman told me about how there are 10 million self-described liberals in America who own guns. This data supports the notion that gun owners, hunters and anglers are not a conservative political monolith.

And I think that's really important for hunting, because I want both parties beholden to us, particularly in California, where Democrats have a substantial majority in the Legislature. If Dems knew how many hunters and anglers were on their side - and that they're more likely to vote than the buy-it-shrinkwrapped-at-the-grocery-store crowd - perhaps we'd get more respect.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Hunters: Stop hiding - you're not pariahs

With all anti-hunting propaganda out there suggesting hunters are nothing but a bunch of cruel, heartless drunks, it's easy to start thinking we might need to keep our mouths shut about exactly what we do on our weekends. Ya wouldn't want the person in the next cubicle to know that you ... gasp! ... hunt to put food on your table, right?

WRONG.

I mean, I've never been a fan of skulking about. Why should I hide my ethical and responsible participation in a legal activity?

But now I've got research that makes it clear why I should be up front about my hunting.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation released a 273-page study this week called "The Future of Hunting and Shooting Sports." It provides a full-fledged feast for thought, including some heartening data and nearly 200 concrete recommendations - many of which ordinary hunters can do - to ensure the survival of our right to hunt and shoot.

I haven't finished reading it yet, but there are a couple things I wanted to share right away:

Talk about what you do. The study found that non-hunters get the most negative impressions of hunting from the media, and the most positive impressions from hunters themselves. That means if they only hear about hunting from the media, they're not hearing any of the positives. "The more hunters and shooters are out there talking about the positive aspects of hunting and shooting, the more support there is for these activities," the report concludes (p. 235). "Hunters and shooters, more than anti-hunters and anti-shooters, hold the key to future public opinion regarding hunting and shooting" (p. 236).

Language matters. The study does note that hunters should be prepared for some extreme reactions when discussing hunting, but that it's important not to respond in kind - stay calm, being neither aggressive, extreme, nor condescending (p. 230). It's also important to distinguish that what we do is legal hunting. Some nonhunters lump the poachers and the ethical hunters into one group. Using the terms "legal hunting" or "regulated hunting" makes it clear that you are not a poacher (p. 231).

Hunting for meat has strong support. I noted this when I got a sneak preview of the data in May, but it's worth repeating: 85 percent of those surveyed support hunting for meat (p. 165). Hunting for sport has a bare majority (53 percent), and hunting for a trophy the least (28 percent). The report doesn't state this explicitly, it it's clear to me that when you talk about hunting to non-hunters, you should always make it clear that you eat what you kill - even if you keep a trophy from that kill. This survey found that 97 percent of hunters eat what they kill.

Combat erroneous information. The survey says 46 percent of Americans believe hunting, as practiced today, causes some species to become endangered (p. 176). They're not aware that the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation exists, much less that it has ensured that regulated hunting does not endanger game species (pp. 181-182). This is worth mentioning when you have some of those conversations with non-hunters.

Support for hunting is on the upswing. It's not a huge increase, but the trendline is going the right direction (p. 162).

If you'd like to see some of this report for yourself, I recommend going to chapters 8 (public opinion on hunting) and 9 (implications and action items).

I suspect I'll be chewing on this information for weeks to come. It's definitely going to affect how I talk to non-hunters about what I do.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

A theory: Why women dig bowhunting

A few months ago, I posed the question: What is it with women and bowhunting? I wondered why the number of women bowhunters is rising far more rapidly than the number of women hunters.

I've found one possible explanation for why women gravitate to bowhunting in a book I just devoured, In Defense of Hunting by Dr. James A. Swan. If you're an expert in psychology, please bear with my grossly inexpert translation: Carl Jung's theory is that our inner personality is generally either more male (the animus, characterized by rational thought and physical aggression) or more female (the anima, characterized by emotions, intuitions and feelings).

Swan applies those traits to hunting:
"The more a hunter relies on stalking and on weapons with a limited striking distance(emphasis added), the more important to success is the feminine mode of consciousness. Sights, sounds, odors, and intuitions that come must be screened and woven into an awareness of the whole of a situation to make the connection between the hunter and the hunted."

Now, if you're a male bowhunter, don't protest - under Jungian theory, each of us has a bit of the other in our personality. According to Swan, you're just tapping your anima. Your manhood is safe!

Is it psychobabble? Don't ask me - I took one psych class in college and one in high school (Ironman, do you remember the old lech who taught that class?) and the only thing I remember is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I'm just saying hunting with a bow really resonates with women, and I'm looking for answers to the question why.

When I read descriptions like Swan's, they ring true with me - some of the things I love most about hunting are in fact a reflection of feminine traits.

Of course, I still don't have a bow, so I haven't tried bowhunting yet. For now, I must remain content to hunt with my beau instead.

Holly and Boyfriend

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Linked: hunting license sales and ... food?

Good news, and good press: The Sacramento Bee reports today that the number of hunting and fishing licenses sold in California has risen for the second straight year. It's the first time since 1990 that sales have increased two years in a row, so that's pretty cool.

Not only is the story fair - always a good thing - but its exploration of reasons for the trend covers a couple of my favorites. One is the possibility that the increase is attributable at least in part to the rising number of female hunters. Thank you, thank you very much! Yes, I was part of this two-year trend.

The other one I really like covers one of the main reasons I hunt: food.

Here's what reporter Matt Weiser had to say:

The increase may also reflect a trickle-down effect from the organic food movement.

An offshoot is the "eat local" trend, in which consumers are rejecting foods made in far-flung factories. Instead, they seek health benefits and a smaller environmental footprint by buying food raised in their own region.

"When you see a culinary trend like that, those who have been associated with hunting or fishing say, 'I can go get me some of that'," said Sonke Mastrup, Fish and Game deputy director. "It adds to the allure or prestige. Not only are you serving wild game to your friends, but it's game you got yourself."

He goes on to talk about the book, Omnivore's Dilemma, and its influence on American food culture.

I tell you, this is very real. When Boyfriend and I throw parties and he puts out his immaculate spread of smoked, cured and other game meats, not one person comes away without trying and liking at least a few bites. And yes, many vegetarians have left our house with meat stuck in their teeth. Hee hee hee...

So, cheers to the Bee for a good story, cheers to California for the good news, and cheers to all the good food we go out and get for ourselves.

Of course, if the trend keeps up, the quest for that food is going to get a LOT more competitive. But if that's the price we have to pay to ensure hunting isn't driven extinct by misguided, naive and well-funded people, then so be it.

Chew on this, antis: A new survey shows hunting for meat has broad public support

Spread the word, hunters - spread it far and wide. A survey that will be released in June shows that 97 percent of hunters (or their families) eat what they kill, and 85 percent of American adults approve of hunting for meat.

The survey was conducted by Responsive Management, a Virginia research firm, for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which will release details at its 2008 National Shooting Sports Summit June 23-25 in Colorado Springs.

I was thrilled to get an early preview of some of the data because my strong sense has always been that most people accept hunting for meat. The problem lies in the broad public perception that many people think hunters don't eat what they kill - a myth effectively propagated by the Humane Society, which tells the public that hunters use doves for target practice and don't actually eat them.

Beyond that, HSUS and other anti-hunting propagandists cement the impression that hunters are just in it for the killing by emphasizing the "trophy" aspect of trophy hunting - ignoring the fact that most hunters eat what's south of the trophy.

And surprise, surprise: The NSSF survey shows that hunting for trophies has the lowest amount of support from the public - just 28 percent. See why the Humane Society harps on that? They're not stupid, folks - just misguided.

So what does all of this mean for hunters?

You need to talk to non-hunters about the food aspect of your hunting to dispel the myth that you just like to kill animals for kicks, because the public has no idea that almost all of us are eating what we kill.

Personally, I'm blessed to have a Boyfriend who loves to garden and hunt and cook and bring all those pursuits together in a joyous symphony at our dinner table. That means I get to eat serious gourmet game all the time. Lucky me!

We also both believe strongly that local, sustainable, organic food is not only best for the environment, but best for our bodies as well. We avoid factory-farmed meat as much as possible, eating mostly hunted meat, and supplementing it occasionally with pastured meat.

Beyond that, wild game just plain tastes better than the bland, corn-fed whatever that factory farms turn out these days. Have you noticed that a pork chop and a chicken breast don't taste or even look so different anymore? Man, that's a sin against nature and good taste.

Why do you like game meat? What do you do with the game you bring home? Talk about it, folks! Non-hunters need to hear it.

Now, there's one other interesting thing about this news. Responsive Management has done research on women hunters and found that the No. 1 reason women hunt is for the meat. Even though men obviously enjoy eating the game they bring home, they're half as likely to cite meat as their primary reason for hunting.

Why does this matter? Two reasons. First, women are a growing proportion of hunters, and though our numbers have been hovering at around 1.2 million for the past decade, there is a huge bubble of girl hunters coming up through the ranks, meaning we're likely due for a substantial increase in the coming decade. (Click on that chart if you want to see the detail.)

Second - and I've said this before - women have tremendous potential as ambassadors to the non-hunting world. People listen to us because we're unusual, and they're not as quick to write us off as drunken bubba poachers. When we talk about food, people will listen.

I love connecting the food I eat to the hunts I've enjoyed. That pintail Boyfriend and I ate the other day with the most fat I've ever seen on a wild duck? That was the one I got when I took my friend Hellen to Delevan to observe her first duck hunt. When we did a mallard tasting in February to compare the meat of birds with four different diets - acorn, rice, grass and corn - I was proud to say the winner of the taste test was the grass-fed mallard I got on my first hunt with my friend Dana. Thats the first photo in this blog post.

There is a story behind what we eat. The story is part of the natural cycle of life on earth. Plants and animals alike, we are all born. We all die. Our remains nourish others, whether it's the predator that took our life, the worms that aid in the decomposition of our bodies or the plants that grow from soil we become a part of. I refuse to follow the naive souls who believe humans should remove ourselves even further than we already have from this natural cycle. Far from it, I embrace this cycle completely.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Is the decline in hunters a blip?

Or, more accurately, is the decline in hunters the end of a blip?

That's the interesting idea I came across this morning in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Delta Waterfowl leaders are suggesting that the decline in the number of hunters simply reflects the departure of Baby Boomers from the ranks of hunters as they age.

Tribune-Review Outdoors Editor Bob Frye reports: Delta likened the baby boomer's impact on hunter numbers to a rabbit being swallowed by a rattlesnake, saying, "That rattler was long and lean before it ate the rabbit and will be long and lean after the rabbit is digested, but for now there's a noticeable bulge passing through its body."

The analysis seems logical, but I haven't seen enough data to know for sure. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service does a statistically impeccable survey of hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing every five years. But current survey methodology dates back only to 1991, and the entire survey goes back only to 1955, when the first Boomers were already old enough to start hunting.

Boyfriend - who's just weird enough to have a bunch of squirrel hunting data on his computer - notes that there's hunting license data that goes further back. But you really need a lot of data to get a complete picture of the snake. Hmmm... that'll give me something to do during summer break.

But I digress.

Delta notes there are other issues affecting hunters' ranks too, such as increasing urbanization and the loss of huntable private land. That last one hit home this weekend when Boyfriend and I were out hunting turkeys in Amador County with our friend Evan and had a grand total of three ranches where we had permission to hunt.

Evan said there used to be far more places to go in Amador. But while much of the land is still open and rural, it has changed hands, either converting to vineyards or becoming the retirement homes for equity-rich retirees from the San Francisco Bay Area (not a region particularly friendly to hunting).

Even so, I think the ranks of hunters are due to rise, because there's another bump coming through the snake: young female hunters. Now, if we can just make sure their grandparents save some habitat for them, we'll be onto something.


© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Sweet! Girls' hunting numbers are way up

There was a little flurry of excitement last week when USA Today, followed by the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, touted an increase in the number of women hunters in the U.S.

Having been down that road before only to find some bizarre flaw in the data, I was skeptical. The best data available - U.S. Fish & Wildlife's survey - show that the number of women hunters is indeed greater now than it was in 1991. But it's been dropping slowly and steadily since 1996, both in numbers and as a percentage of the total U.S. female population.

But USA Today's Marty Roney uncovered a nugget from the Fish & Wildlife data that is truly cause for celebration: The number of young female hunters - ages 6 to 15 - is increasing, nearly doubling since 1991. I checked it out with Fish & Wildlife; it's for real.

First of all, cheers to all the moms and dads who have taken their girls out hunting. And based on what I've seen out in the field - and the trend of dads getting more involved with their children in general - I have to say hats off to dads, especially.

If you look closely at the data, these girls have real potential to bolster the numbers of women hunters, and hunters in general. Check this out - and click on it if you want to see all the little numbers clearly:

That group of girls in the 1991 survey? Theoretically, they grew up to become part of the women's numbers for the 2001 survey. Imagine what will happen to our numbers 10 years from now if the group of girls in 2006 stick with it.

Why does any of this matter? For starters, the more of a minority hunters become, the easier it is for us to lose our clout in the state legislatures that directly or indirectly affect our hunting rights.

But I believe there's another important component to this trend.

It's easy for the non-hunting public to write off hunters if they think we're all a bunch of drunken shoot-em-up poachers, a ragtag army of Larry the Cable Guys. Don't get me wrong - I love Larry the Cable Guy. I just don't think he's the best ambassador for hunters.

But women hunters are different. Rightly or wrongly, the non-hunting public isn't as quick to stereotype us because we are supposed to be the gentler sex. And because we defy stereotypes, I believe the non-hunting public is more inclined to listen to what we have to say about hunting. Well, if she does it, there must be something interesting going on here that I just don't understand...

So, good news all around. It's confirmation that steps we've taken to include women and girls may be making a huge difference after all. Time to redouble our efforts and solidify our gains.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Duck hunting with the boys in the Delta

Last year, my boyfriend went out for an afternoon shoot at a friend's duck-hunting club in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and I wasn't invited. There wasn't room, and I didn't know the guy, so I was out of luck. I was bummed.

This year, though, things were different. I'd hunted doves with Tom in September, and when the invitation came to join him at his club this weekend, I was on the guest list.

Now when I think "club," I have visions of something, you know, clubby. Exclusive. Nice.

Saturday's excursion repaired that flaw in my thinking.

The boyfriend and I pulled up at 5 a.m. sharp - as ordered. The club's public face was a big farm outbuilding sided with corrugated metal and a ... house. Loosely speaking. As we walked up ramshackle steps onto a soggy porch, I noticed a man in camo, about five feet from the porch, urinating in the dark.

Oh no - no bathroom?

We opened the door to reveal a house about as chic as a 30-year-old trailer, and quickly found ourselves amidst something that can only be described as the detritus of a middle-aged men's slumber party.

Men everywhere, sleeping or sprawling about in camo leggings and shirts, speaking in the hoarse language of hangovers. Waders on the floor. Liquor bottles everywhere. Large bags of tortilla chips. Two recliners and a decent TV (of course!) Coffee that was being accented with an amber liquid of unknown origins. A stuffed wood duck on a log, tilting precipitously on a table, like a shipwreck. A beautiful stuffed specklebelly goose hanging over the TV by what might have been a still-twisted coathanger.

I'm fine with this. I'm very partial to men, and I forgive them for sometimes being blind to the aesthetic potential of daily life.

Besides, who am I to complain? Waterfowling, more than any other form of hunting in the U.S., is a male-dominated sport (just click on the chart to see the detail). I was in their house.

I sat fairly quietly as the morning talk warmed up and men gently tested the waters, speaking carefully to figure out whether I was a delicate "lady" or whether they could curse freely in front of me. (Hello! The latter, of course.) There were stirrings in one of the bedrooms and a man came out in his tightie-whities making a beeline for the bathroom.

Oh good. The bathroom works!

But I wondered: Had anyone warned these poor guys that a chick would be here? I mean, I don't care, but I wonder if Underwear Man had expected to wake up and find a woman in the middle of this haven of masculinity. Oh well.

I quickly got past visual shock of the scene because everyone was talking about Friday's hunt. There had been a huge storm that brought driving rain, 50+ mph winds and lots of crazy duck action. All over the state, there were reports of the most amazing shoots ever. And at this club, they'd brought in more than 100 birds.

The question was, would it be that good today? It didn't look like it. The wind had died down and the clouds had disappeared. As shoot time approached, we all split up, headed to our boats and made our way to our blinds, motoring through corn stalks and Johnson Grass to find little outposts where decoys lay in wait and duckboats could easily be hidden.

The morning shoot was not great. Six people in our party brought in a total of four birds, my contribution being the finishing shot on a spoonie drake that had easily been hit by two or three other hunters first. (Boyfriend just got finished dressing that spoonie a little while ago, and it was not a pretty sight.) We pulled out at 9 a.m., leaving me sputtering quietly to myself. Over? Already? But the day is young! But! But! ...

But that was it.

We trudged back into the clubhouse and lit a fire in the stove. And when I listened to what Tom had to say about the club, I began to figure out how special this place really was.

Essentially, a bunch of guys got together a few years ago, bought a piece of Delta farmland and began investing in turning it back into perfect waterfowl habitat. They receive tax credits for keeping it as natural land instead of developing it for profit. Non-profit organizations work with them to improve the waterfowl habitat. And in return for their investment (and taxpayers', and non-profits'), they and their friends have a great place to hunt.

So, so what if the house ain't much to look at? The land is immaculate, and that's what they're here for. They had my respect.

After a few hours of football and wayyy too much talk about politics, the sky began to darken, the wind picked up and the rain started coming down hard.

Let's do it! our party agreed, and out we went again.

We set up in a blind and hunted, two of us in the boat, three outside, and when it became clear the birds were spotting us, we all broke up and spread out away from the boat. I found a spot hidden among some flooded cornstalks and stood hip-deep in water, my back to the wind, the rain drumming my hood. This was the visual misery depicted on the box my waders came in! Rugged stuff. This must be heaven.

There were lots of teal in the neighborhood. My teal call's nothing to write home about, but my wigeon call seemed to really get their attention, so I hit it hard.

One flock came in and I was one of two hunters to down one (in one shot, thank you!). But it fell in a patch of Johnson Grass so thick that even our party's dog couldn't find it. Note to self: Don't shoot if they can drop or sail into that grass.

Another group of three came in close enough to shoot, and over open water, but if I fired, no one else would get a chance. I held fire to let the ducks swing around, and instead they swung away. Note to self: Just shoot, you idiot.

Another group came in and I dropped one (again, one shot!), and this time she fell in open water about 20 feet from me. Because I'm so used to retrieving my own ducks, I charged after her, leaving our dog wandering around trying to find my duck for me. I'd stolen his thunder. Bad Holly!

The duck was a beautiful cinnamon teal hen. I showed her to the dog, even let him put her in his mouth so he'd understand the mission had been accomplished. He didn't get it. He swam around in the icy water for another five minutes before returning, befuddled, to his master. Note to self: Let the dog do his job.

We'd been out for a couple of hours by this point. One friend stood in the corn near me, shivering.

"Isn't your jacket waterproof?"

"No," he said. "I'm soaked."

A few minutes later, he announced his waders had sprung a leak - not cool in hip-deep water - so he went back to the boat.

My boyfriend had stopped calling because his sodden gloves were wrecking the sound. My left thumb was numb. And when we could get birds to work, we couldn't shoot worth a damn because of our shivering wet hands. With five more birds to our credit, we decided to head back in.

Back at the clubhouse, Tom's brother clapped me on the back. "This girl is tough!" he said. "When I saw someone go back to the boat, I thought it was her, but man, she stuck it out!"

I beamed.

I may not fit in their clubhouse, but I fit in their field just fine.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Women hunters - the "72% increase"

There it was again: The number of women hunters has soared 72 percent in the last five years. It's a happy number that has been repeated over the past year in newspapers from the Springfield, Mass., Republican to The Washington Post. This time I found it in a recent piece by Bill Redeker from ABC World News. The problem is it just doesn't appear to be correct.

I've been poring over stats and talking to researchers, and here's what I've been able to piece together:

The National Sporting Goods Association tracks stats on participation in a wide variety of sports, from aerobics to hunting with firearms. That group also provides stats for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry.

Last year, the National Shooting Sports Foundation put out a press release saying NSGA stats showed a 72 percent increase over five years in the participation rate of women who hunt with firearms, and a 176 percent increase in the participation rate of women bowhunters.

It's a great story. More women taking to the field! Fantastic. Newspapers, bloggers and TV have been repeating the number ever since. I repeated it last month. Great news!

I love numbers, so I started digging into all the stats I could find. I asked the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for stats, and when I put them together last week, I found the actual number of women hunters had been declining slightly since 1996.

Hmm. That's weird. Better go to the source of the "72 percent" figure - the National Sporting Goods Association. That's what I did Sunday, and I found the stats on the NSGA website showed.... the number of women hunters apparently holding steady.

But how could that be? Wasn't the NSGA the source of that figure?

Yes, but it turns out the NSGA does separate research for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and those numbers are different. It appears there may be some differences in how NSGA conducts those surveys. I've talked to researchers for both of those organizations, and they're trying to get to the bottom of why the numbers are so different. We still don't have clear answers yet.

But what is clear is that the very best numbers out there come from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, because that agency does a huge survey that starts with 85,000 households - vastly larger than the NSGA surveys, which means it's likely far more accurate.

The chart below (click on it to see a larger version) lays out the numbers I have. It's not all apples-to-apples; two figures are for numbers of women hunters and one is for women who hunt with firearms. But you get the general trend - the numbers from U.S. Fish & Wildlife and the National Sporting Goods Association are basically holding steady, but the figures NSGA gave to the National Shooting Sports Foundation show an increase.

Fellow numbers geeks may notice that I've glossed over some fine points: The stats tend to measure three separate figures - total number, percent of women who hunt and percent of hunters who are women. In this chart, I've just used numbers. But I've also crunched the percent-of-women-who-are-hunters figures, and I've compared 2005 to 2001, and 2006 to 2001 to replicate all the variations I've seen reported, and the 72 percent increase is an anomaly that appears only once.

So there you have it. It's not what I wanted to find out when I started digging, but it is what it is.

As for me? I'm going to pull my head out of these numbers and start working to get more women into hunting.

© Holly A. Heyser 2007

More women hunting: lies & damned lies?

With nothing nice to say about our guided Canada goose hunt at an area hunting perserve on Saturday, I found some time this morning to dig into those perplexing National Sporting Goods Association stats that suggest a 72 percent increase in women hunting, according to numerous articles I've seen. I noted on Friday that this was a surprising figure, given that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stats show our numbers have actually decreased a bit in the past five years.

Little did I know how surprising it would be - so surprising that I've been digging into this for hours when I should be cleaning house for a dinner party we're having tonight. Thank God the boyfriend's doing the cooking, because if it were me, I'd be ordering take-out about now. I love men who cook.

Here's the deal: The National Sporting Goods Association counts 2.4 million women hunting with firearms and 700,000 women bowhunting in 2006. Five years earlier? Again, 2.4 million women hunting with firearms, and 400,000 women bowhunting.

You can click on the image here to see the details - both the numbers taken from the NSGA website and my own additional calculations. But cutting to the chase, that's a ZERO percent increase for firearms hunters and a 75 percent increase for bowhunters. (And don't even think about adding bowhunters and firearm hunters to get a grand total, because I know many of my fellow huntresses hunt with both - you can't double-count them.)

So, you ask, how did this become a 72 percent increase in women hunting? I have an inquiry in to the statisticians at the National Sporting Goods Association to find out if the number came from them. But I did a little sleuthing this morning, and the earliest reference to a 72 percent increase that I can find is an Oct. 18, 2006, press release from the National Shooting Sports Foundation about the NSGA survey. The numbers in that press release bear no resemblance to the numbers in the NSGA survey.

It's possible that the NSGA had different survey results out last year, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation was referring to something entirely different that included radically different numbers. But I doubt that - numbers just don't normally jump around that much from year to year.

So, being a lifelong journalist, a journalism professor and an incurable geek, I tracked all subsequent references in the media to see how the numbers morphed. It's a fascinating trail that wanders through hunting organizations, a university, and newspapers small and large - including The Washington Post. You can watch the total number of women hunters jump around between 2.4 million, 3 million and 3.4 million. You can watch the origin of the stats migrate from the National Sporting Goods Association to the National Shooting Sports Foundation to the National Rifle Association.

Click on the chart below if you want to see what happened. Meanwhile, I'll keep trying to figure out if there's any truth to this 72 percent increase, or if it was all just a sad game of Telephone in which we - including myself - all blindly repeated what we think we heard as if it were the gospel.

© Holly A. Heyser 2007

Our declining numbers???

One of my first posts on this blog was on a news story about the growing number of women hunters. The relevant part of the story:

A 2005 five-year survey by the National Sporting Goods Association painted a rosier picture of female hunting participation, claiming a 72 percent increase nationwide.

But later, I blogged on detailed stats from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that report 1 percent of women hunt. Twenty-year huntress Dana contacted me and said, "I was looking at your stats on how many women versus men hunt. We are still at only 1%?"

I hadn't thought about that, but when I read through the Fish and Wildlife reports and saw us hovering at 1 percent since 1991, I realized I needed more detail - like a couple decimal places - to see what was really happening with women. I got it yesterday, and sorry Dana, you're gonna be depressed about this:

Both the number of women hunters and the percentage of women who hunt have declined steadily since 1996.

You can click on the images to see the exact numbers enlarged, but you probably get the idea.

Seeing these numbers, I'm now on a mission to find out what's going on. The most important question is what happened to make the 1996 numbers spike like that? I wasn't hunting then, but I have a pretty good guess: Becoming an Outdoorswoman started in 1991, and the program reports that 20,000 women participate in it every year.

If I'm right, this is really important, because it shows that a concerted effort will work, and if we want more women to hunt, we need to support these efforts.

But what's also noteworthy here is the slippage. We still have more women hunting than before BOW started, but it's clear many women who tried it didn't stick with it. As it is with many sports, recruitment is only half the battle; retention is the rest.

Why does any of this matter? Well, as with animal species in general and human subgroups in particular, we're all biologically driven to perpetuate ourselves and ensure the survival of our kind.

But I think the role of women in hunting is more important than that: I think we're a crucial political force. Every hunter who pays any attention to politics knows that declining numbers of hunters means increasing danger of losing our right to hunt. As long as hunters are a fringe group, it's easy for mainstream politics to marginalize us.

But if hunters are a healthy and diverse group representing many facets of our society, we have clout. And if you don't think women are an important part of the electorate, check out all the jockeying in the Democratic presidential primary these days.

I'd love to hear from other hunters out there about other potential reasons for the 1996 spike, and your thoughts on the subsequent decline.

Meanwhile, I'm still working with Fish and Wildlife to get more detailed stats - including updated numbers on women's hunting expenditures. And I definitely want to find out why the National Sporting Goods Association numbers paint a picture so different from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife numbers. I'll keep you posted.

© Holly A. Heyser 2007

Women hunters and the pocketbook

We all know women are a minority among hunters: According to the latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service census, only 9 percent of hunters are women, and only 1 percent of U.S. women hunt.

That doesn't surprise me - all you have to do is look around at the wildlife refuges where I hunt to see that's true.

But here's what does surprise me: The latest Fish and Wildlife analysis of gender and race stats (which unfortunately dates back to 2001), shows women spend substantially less on hunting equipment than the average hunter - about 42 percent less, or $255 a year, compared with $442 for all hunters. (Click on the chart to enlarge it.)

Most of the stats don't worry me, but this one does, and here's why: Spending equals clout. The market bends to those who spend. How can we expect manufacturers to create more products suited to our special needs, such as clothes that actually fit, if we're proven spendthrifts?

There are all sorts of reasons why we see this spending gap. One I hear often is that women hunters are often mothers who are accustomed to squirreling away resources for family and home, rarely indulging in gifts to themselves. Fortunately, I do not suffer from this affliction. I've already spent more than the national average for all hunters this year - one game cart, one Game Ear, tons of ammo and bam! there's a big hole in my credit card.

And I admit this is pure speculation, but I suspect the other reason is many of us come to hunting by invitation of our boyfriends and husbands.

My new friend Dana - whom I met through this blog - has been hunting for 20 years, and she's been on a mission to get women to try hunting with her. She says it's almost impossible - they just won't do it. And I have to admit: If it had been a female friend who invited me to hunt instead of my boyfriend, whom I trust more than anyone else in the world, I'm not sure I would've been as quick to take it up. I don't know why; I just suspect that's the case.

Why is it relevant that our mates are the ones who bring us to hunting? Because by the time my boyfriend invites me to hunt, he's already invested thousands of dollars in the sport, much of it on equipment he can share with me. We don't need any more decoys just because there are two of us in the blind. We don't need another backpack. We don't need another knife. And if he upgrades, chances are I can use his old stuff - personally, I've already inherited three duck calls.

Obviously, it makes sense for new women hunters to get by on hand-me-downs and shared gear for a while. It's just not reasonable to spend thousands of dollars on the sport until you know you're going to love it.

But ladies, once you're in love with it, start spending like you love it. I know it's hard; much specialized clothing for women can be found only in catalogs, and we all know that most women, with our variety of body types, have to try things on to make sure they work for us.

But we need to do it. It's the only way the marketplace will ever come close to granting us true equality.

I know the manufacturers have more hunting gear for women than ever before - I'll give them that. But for me, equality means knowing I can find what I need at my local sporting goods store as often and as easily as my boyfriend can. And I'm not talking about camo underwear.

© Holly A. Heyser 2007

Stats galore - hunters by gender, age, race, ethnicity and residence

Here are some cool charts and graphs from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey I mentioned in my last post. Turns out I'm in:

• The minority, by gender, as a female
• The plurality, by age, as a 42-year-old
• A tie for third out of five education-level groups, as a four-year-degree holder (the percentage who are four-year-degree holders is the same as the percentage who didn't finish high school)
• The vast majority by race - white
• A confusing position as a big city-dweller, living in a population 1 million-plus "metropolitan statistical area." We constitute the second-largest group of hunters, but that's by virtue of how many city-dwellers there are. In terms of the percentage of the population that hunts, big cities have the lowest.
• The .... oh, hell, I'm not gonna talk about my income.

Check out the charts below - taken straight from the report - and see where you fit!

Women - they're coming right at us!

Somehow I missed this story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sunday, but thanks to the TFS Magnum blog, I've found it. The upshot: Despite declining demand for hunting licenses overall, the number of women hunters is increasing, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

I've seen other stories recently that referred to this new data, but this story's pretty thorough. Here's a snippet:

"Something is happening with women and hunting," (said said Mark Duda of Responsive Management, a Virginia firm that tracks and interprets outdoors trends).

Cultural change, societal acceptance and a concerted recruitment effort by state game agencies and shooting and hunting organizations has driven the spike in female interest that began 30 years ago, flattened in the 1990s, and peaked again at the start of this century.

Question No. 1: What happened to us in the 1990s?

Question No. 2: If there was a spike 30 years ago, why do Boomers often look at me like I'm a freak?

Question No. 3: As a total numbers geek and spreadsheet freak, how long will it take me to report back to you with my own take on the USFWS stats?

It's not easy to find the report or the stats - they're not on the main FWS website. But I called and got directions (chick thing - ha!), and found a veritable playground of data and analysis here.

I'll chew on this stuff a bit soon and see what else is of interest and report back to y'all. One thing I'm looking forward to is the data on non-whites. I know I think I'm a rare bird, but in my hunting circles, non-whites are even more rare. Given the changing demographics of California in particular and the U.S. in general, welcoming other ethnicities into the tribe of hunters will be important for the survival of the sport (and I hate the word "sport" to describe hunting because this is not a football game, but I'll use it for lack of a better term).

One thing I know you'll never see, though, are special hunts for certain ethnic groups, the way women get special hunts. People would freak. And that raises the question: Is it really fair for women to get special hunt opportunities?