PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • October 29, 2022
Maryrose McLellan started hunting at age 16, learning from her mother, who hunted to provide food for her children while raising them in rural Unity 80 years ago. When McLellan learned to stalk deer, she was, like her mother, an outlier. But today Maryrose McLellan is no longer part of an indistinguishable minority as the ranks of women hunters in Maine continue to grow. Between 2005 and 2015, the percentage of hunting licenses sold to women in Maine jumped from 8% to 13% – and has increased nearly every year since. Last year, 15% of hunters in the Maine woods were women.