Sitting in a tree stand, Charlene Gawronski is decked out in camo on Michigan’s opening day of the deer firearm season.
Gunshots ring nearby, but three hours pass without any deer sightings. After 50 years of hunting, Gawronski knows it takes patience.
She shot her first rabbit when she was 12 years old with her Uncle Bob.
“That just was our special thing,” Gawronski said.
Gawronski said she doesn’t know for sure why her uncle chose her instead of her brothers and sisters, but she suspects he noticed blood and guts didn’t bother her.
“I think that was part of it, because he didn’t like cleaning the animals. He was squeamish, and I wasn’t,” she said with a chuckle.
IN ITS FIRST-EVER national survey on outdoor recreation from 1955, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that roughly 4% of hunters were women.
That number has climbed to around 22%, according to the latest 2022 USFWS survey, but the gender gap remains wide.
“Whether that has to do with it being a traditionally male dominated field, or just lack of representation, women get intimidated by the subject matter,” said Jess Rice, the founder of wildHERness.
WildHERness began in Missouri and hosts regular events for women to get together and hunt. Rice grew up hunting and knows how empowering it can be, especially as a woman.
“All I’ve ever wanted out of this is to show people what this incredible world has to offer us,” Rice said. “Because all of it, at the end of the day, relates back to conservation.”
An untapped market
Hunting licenses — along with taxes on firearms and ammunition — generate a lot of funding for state wildlife agencies and conservation programs in the U.S.
Hunter numbers peaked in the 1980s, but even with a short-term “COVID bump,” hunting license sales have generally declined in states like Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio since then. Nationally, license sales appear steady, but a smaller percentage of Americans hunt today compared to 50 years ago.
Fewer hunters can also hurt wildlife management, causing out-of-control deer populations, for example.
