Photo: MDC
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A state-sponsored photo contest is underway with the goal of inspiring more women to take up hunting in New York.
The Department of Environmental Conservation is encouraging women to email photos to the agency by the end of December. Winning entries will be featured in next year’s New York State Hunting and Trapping Regulations Guide and may appear in the state’s Conservationist magazine or the DEC’s social media posts.
Photos may show women hunting, preparing to go afield, posing with their kill or otherwise engaged in the sport. Entries should be emailed to socialmedia@dec.ny.gov.
According to DEC records, nearly 50,000 women are licensed to hunt in New York state. That’s out of about 560,000 licensed hunters overall.
Exposing the Big Game 
At some point, I don’t think there will be enough animals to support this. Encouraging people to exploit the lives of sentient beings is immoral and unethical. I don’t think that ‘reaching one’s full potential’ should include being able to kill. I hope women are better than that.
Handing someone a gun and ammo doesn’t make one a hunter. We know that there are those elusive ethical hunters out there, those for whom it is a tradition, and subsistence hunters. Probably they will always be with us. But trying to increase those numbers just to make money is unethical and immoral, IMO.