Does the Jersey Devil prefer the ladies?

I was recently asked an interesting question, and decided to look into it to see what the data tells us about Jersey Devil sightings. I have been asked many questions over the years about where it is seen, what time of day, what does it look like, etc., so these are all statistics that I can spout off at any given time. However, this question I had not heard before. Does the Jersey Devil have a preference for women over men?

This question came to me after hearing a theory that Harry Leeds had divulged. He believes that the Jersey Devil is attracted to women more often than it is men. He theorized that it had something to do with a desire for maternal care on the Jersey Devil's part.

Taking out the personification that Harry had given to the Jersey Devil, I decided to look at the facts. I went through the sightings database and reviewed all names of sightings witnesses to see if I can find the percentages for each gender.

Here are the results:
Men - 70%
Women - 30%

So, it looks like the data does not support Harry's theory. If the Jersey Devil prefers women, he's certainly not running into them more often than men! Obviously this is not an exact science, and you could argue additional points - like men tend to be drawn towards outdoor activities more often than women, increasing the likelihood of an encounter.

Anyway, we thought that might be interesting to know.

Laura K. Leuter, Director

Welcome to our Research!

Over the years, our group has done a lot of research into the Jersey Devil. Sometimes we happen to discover things that we haven't got a place for on our website. Now, we've created this research blog as an outlet for all of that research. Coming soon, we'll be updating the blog with snippets of information that we discover about the Jersey Devil or other related topics.

We hope you enjoy!

-- The Devil Hunters