deer tagged posts

Bridget with her first duck (a Black Duck!) at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey.

You might say my story is an unlikely one. 

I grew up in suburban Connecticut, where many of my peers’ interests centered around video games or the mall.  Yet I was always happiest exploring the neighborhood woodlot
and nearby marshes.  In college I studied biology at a liberal arts school in Massachusetts that specialized in producing future physicians.  Instead, I chose a career in wildlife conservation.  I took up hunting about six years ago, but going by demographics alone (as a young, suburban, college-educated woman from the northeast) – it’s reasonable to predict that I might have instead held some anti-hunting views.   

I confess I laughed out loud at part of Jodi Stemler’s rec...

Since the late 1930s, hunters, target shooters and the firearms industry have been the nation’s largest contributors to conservation, paying for programs that benefit America’s wildlife and all who love the outdoors.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Interior just announced that firearms and ammunition manufacturers contributed a record $760.9 million in excise taxes in 2013 through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Program.

NSSF has created a new infographic, “How Wildlife is Thriving Because of Guns and Hunting ,” to illustrate how we as an industry and as sportsmen are the greatest contributors to wildlife conservation in America, providing nearly $9 billion over the past 76 years.

Explore more visuals like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Vis...

What’s cooking?  More wild game of course! As we come together this holiday weekend with family and friends, there is no better way to celebrate than with food.  I discovered The Meatball Shop in NYC three years ago and was delighted to learn they also have wild game recipes because they have a hunter friend. If ever in the Big Apple do yourself a favor and check out the shop – delicious!  In the meantime, here’s a recipe I’ve adapted for Venison, AKA Bambi, Meatballs – Whitney

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Drizzle the olive oil into a 9×13-inch  baking dish and use your hands or a paper towel to evenly coat the entire surface.  Set aside.

Combine the butter and chocolate in the top of a double boiler and melt over medium heat...

A Life Among the Silver Backed Males

I work in a pretty male-dominated field. I remember 20 years ago when I was interning for a wildlife conservation organization, my supervisor described our colleagues as “silver backed males,” a fairly apt description for the typically gray-haired men leading most of the conservation movement at the time. At the first conferences I attended, I was often struck by how skewed the gender demographics were in traditional wildlife management.

Jodi Stemler

I felt I had another strike against me as I was trying to shoulder my way in to the profession, because I grew up in the most densely populated state in the country. New Jersey – little bitty state, lots and lots (and lots) of people...

Trent Ellingsen | StockVault

Female hunters are on the rise – and they’re appearing more and more on TV and in the news. Instead of men with beards, we’re seeing images of blondes in pearls with a shotgun (think Debutante Hunters).

A recent article on Salon, Nothing like “Duck Dynasty”: My life as a female hunter, points out that hunting isn’t as glamorous as hot girls with guns. Its author is a Korean-American professor who says she is neither hot, nor blonde, contrasting herself to one of the authors on our Sportswoman’s Reading List from this week (can you guess who by the covers?)

Paula Young Lee, the article author, says people are usually surprised – sometimes appalled – that she hunts. Here are two excerpts:

City people are frequently surprised to learn that “hunti...