Science You Can Use: Bucking the trend: Understanding women’s growing participation in hunting in the Mountain-Prairie region

For decades, national participation in hunting has been on the decline. One population of hunters, however, is bucking the trend: Women. Studies on women in hunting often focus on barriers to participation, such as lack of leisure time, lack of experience, and lack of role models. But despite those barriers, women’s participation has been increasing. In 2022 an estimated 3 million women represented 22 percent of all hunters, more than double the number from 2016. Given this upward trend, there are still many unanswered questions about what motivates women to participate in hunting.

Photo Credit

Forest Service photo,

It is known that peer-support networks and gear libraries are useful tools to support women hunters. Agencies and organizations can play a role in supporting this growing population.

Rocky Mountain Research Station scientists collaborated with researchers from South Dakota State University to shed new light on women’s decision making in hunting and explore the roles which community-led efforts, like gear libraries and peer support networks, play in bolstering women’s participation. Co-led by Rocky Mountain Research Station research social scientist Lauren Redmore, the research team gathered information from participants at women’s educational outdoor events in South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. The team used qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interviews and a three-day community of practice. The study’s results identified the top five decision categories for women when they are thinking about hunting: gear selection, tradeoffs with household responsibilities, hunting partners; hunting land access, and general preplanning. Having the right gear was mentioned as a top consideration by 70 percent of the participants, from durability to safety to fit. On the topic of access, one upland bird hunter mentioned, “Public land has been something that I relied on my entire hunting experience. Public land has been a great resource that does not require me to approach strangers for access.” Another hunter, who was also a mother, discussed the difficulty of finding flexible, trusted childcare. In addition to evaluating these decision categories individually, Redmore and her colleagues also examined how women navigated decision making across these categories, especially when faced with compounding barriers to participation. They found that participants often navigated challenging decisions with support from the wider hunting community. In many cases, they were turning to other women hunters or women’s educational programs where they learned effective strategies that enabled them to fully engage. 

Recognizing the value of formal educational programs to strengthen women’s participation in outdoor recreation—particularly hunting—the research team sought to identify the range of programs and opportunities for women looking to develop their outdoor skills. The team documented and created an interactive social systems map of the many available formal educational programs in the region that offer women the opportunity to build skills in the outdoors in community with other women. This work, supported by additional forthcoming research, indicates that community-based efforts may effectively bolster women’s participation in hunting, with potential implications for the continuation of an important American tradition.