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Notes -
Yeah in some ways it's just that hunting is way easier here -- Easterners talk about hunt camps, deer drives, tree stands and I'm like WTF dude, just go drive around at sunrise +/- a couple of hours.
Doesn't really explain the gender difference though -- women I know (and these are in some cases literal partners in crime growing up; no way they are making up stories about shooting moose to impress me) are solidly either 'why can't you just leave the animals alone' or pretty bloodthirsty themselves -- the middle ground is not there. Cultural I guess.
I think a bunch of this is climate, as well- in the south it’s still too warm to hang deer in November, you have to pack the body cavity with ice, or quarter it in an ice chest, which means you need a freezer to store that ice, which means you need a deer camp with electricity. + there’s less public land, you need to secure permission to hunt on someone’s private land. Militates in favor of hunt camps, and since it’s usually private land with restricted access, there’s no free rider problem to setting up feeders and tree stands.
Deer stalking is a different sport which is more common on public land- heavier forest cover makes the Rockies-style ‘drive around on public land until you see an elk’ a way to not see any game.
The gender difference I’m reasonably sure is cultural, though. AFAIK the intermountain west and northern Rockies aren’t much less socially conservative than the south, so it seems kind of random.
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