Hunter education corps taking on a new look

Posted on: September 18, 2017 | Bob Frye | Comments

Female hunter educaiton instructors are becoming more common, partly by design.

The number of female hunter education instructors has been steady in Pennsylvania for a while, but seems poised to grow now.
Photo: Pa GameCommission

Pennsylvania’s volunteer hunter education instructor corps isn’t changing much in terms of overall numbers.

But as for looks?

Now there’s where something different is going on.

Demand

Andy Hueser, the Game Commission’s hunter education specialist, said the number of instructors has declined since the early 2000s. But it’s nothing “super alarming,” he said.

In fact, the demand for hunter-trapper education has dipped faster. That’s especially evident since 2014.

“We are actually exceeding demand significantly by the number of instructors, the number of classes, we have out there,” he said.

Part of that is due to the availability of online training. Still, the commission canceled “quite a few” classes recently, he added.

No matter, the commission is continually recruiting new instructors. And this summer, that effort took on a new look.

Females

The commission sent an email blast to 3,100 avid female hunters – women who bought a hunting license at least four of the last five years – asking them to consider becoming hunter education teachers.

The reason?

Girls.

The percentage of females taking hunter education in Pennsylvania has increased significantly in recent years, climbing by 10 percent between 2010 and 2014.

“The important thing to remember is, this happened without us doing anything. This is a totally organic thing that’s happening just because of a change in the culture of hunting,” Hueser said. “It’s a lot more welcoming.”

The commission wants to keep that rolling, though.

That’s where recruiting more female instructors comes in.

“We know the demographics of the students coming in to the course are changing. The next question is, what about the composition of the instructors presenting the training?” asked Steve Smith, chief of the commission’s bureau of information and education.

That’s an important consideration.

“Anybody who’s taught a course can tell you that female students are more comfortable, they learn better and are more attentive when they have an instructor who is also female,” Hueser said.

Progress

The commission is making inroads into finding women willing to serve.

Right now, Hueser said about 7.6 percent of the 2,200-plus volunteer instructors are women. That’s roughly equal to the percentage of women among licenses buyers.

But things are changing fast.

Forty-six percent of those women became instructors just within the last five years, he noted. And others are waiting to join them.

A little more than 15 percent of all the pending instructor applicants are women, Hueser said. Another 40 women requested applications after hearing from the commission earlier this summer, too.

Rest assured, Hueser said, the commission is pursuing them.

How long the surge of females into the outdoors will last no one knows, he said. But the commission wants to take advantage of it.

“What we can try to do in the short term is, reach out to our female hunters in Pennsylvania and try to get them involved in our program,” he said.

Bob Frye is the everybodyadventures.com editor. Reach him at 412-838-5148 or bfrye@535mediallc.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

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