“One of my best friends lives in Brooklyn, and when she heard I was doing this, she was upset. I showed her what I was doing and explained the donation program. She got it, she understood,” Ms. Arthur added. “I don’t push this on anyone, I just try to explain my side and why I do it.”

If there’s a single spot on Shelter Island to reliably find hunters not in the field, it is probably the town fitness center adjacent to the school gym. Hunting requires real stamina, especially for those who use a bow, so many work out.

That’s where Emily Kraus met her fiancé, Evan Kraus, who taught her bowhunting. A graduate of the University of North Carolina with a degree in exercise and sport science, she never gave hunting a thought. But by the time of her wedding last October, she had taken her first deer.

“There is a right and wrong way to hunt,” she said. “I could not have had a better first experience. It was a doe, it was a clean shot, the best possible, clean and ethical. Because I am also an animal lover.”

Ms. Kraus prefers to hunt with bow and arrow over shotgun because the season is longer. It’s also a better workout. Like most of the hunters she knows, she hunts for food and particularly enjoys introducing friends to grilled venison tenderloin, a revelation to people outside of local hunting culture who think deer are mainly taken for trophies. “I do know men who are out there for the trophy, for that huge rack,” Ms. Kraus said. “I’m out there to provide meat.”

Another denizen of the Shelter Island Town fitness center is Julia Weisenberg, who grew up on Shelter Island and spent a lot of time in the woods with her outdoorsman father. “My mom did archery in college,” Ms. Weisenberg said. “I always kept it in the back of my mind, and in 2017 I got my bowhunting license.”

After enrolling in one of the all-female Shelter Island hunting courses, Ms. Weisenberg began taking target practice at Smith Point Archery. One day she noticed an archer with pink arrows who was a very good shot, Jacqueline Molina. They became friends, and when Ms. Molina took her six-point buck in November, they celebrated together.