The Herd Mentality

Indeed, there is a common perception that if you are a man, you should somehow already know how to hunt, as if the skills necessary to track and kill an animal were encoded directly into the Y chromosome. The DOW clearly has an interest in seeing better hunters roaming the Colorado woods. Yet, while the agency hosts seminars to teach youngsters and women how to hunt, men -- by far the majority of hunters -- are left to their own devices.

While there are no direct studies to confirm this, extrapolation suggests the number of young men needing an introduction to hunting is not small. Dorsey says surveys of twelve- to fourteen-year-old boys indicate that about a third are interested in learning how to hunt, yet only 10 percent actually get around to it. That means that nearly a quarter of the men out there may harbor a latent longing for the sport that could resurface at any moment. But there is nothing for one of these men to do but locate some codger at the local gun club to help him find his way around the woods. Or he can stoically -- and incompetently -- stumble out there on his own and hope for the best.