The Solution to Hunting's Woes? Setting Sights on Women

The Solution to Hunting's Woes? Setting Sights on Women:

As the number of male hunters has declined, the sport has targeted women with everything from pink guns to gender-specific hunting courses. Now, they're seeking out spokesmodels and pushing weapons tailored for women, such as lighter crossbows. Television shows starring women shooters include "American Huntress" and "Family Traditions with Haley Heath," chronicling the hunting adventures of a young woman and her tag-along husband and children.

The campaign received a boost in recent weeks from the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Photographs have since emerged of the governor posing beside a caribou she'd shot, and supporters boasted that she knew how to field-dress a moose. Gov. Palin is an ideal role model, say some women hunters, because she defies the masculine image of the sport. "She's a babe," says Linda Burch, a bear-hunting Minnesota accounting executive who applies lipstick before posing for kill shots.

Gov. Palin also counters the stereotype of the woman hunter as poor, rural and uneducated. A 2003 survey of Texans who had attended a state hunting-and-outdoors training program for women found that 82% lived in cities, 79% had graduated from college and 39% had household incomes above $80,000 a year. They spent a mean of $3,250 a year on outdoor recreational pursuits, said the state wildlife agency, which conducted the survey.

The initial go-to strategy? Pink it and shrink it!

About five years ago, the outdoor-equipment industry began slapping pink paint on weapons, including handguns, and downsizing camouflage. "Initially their attitude was, 'Pink it and shrink it' and women will buy," says Beth Ann Amico, an Oklahoma hunter and dog trainer who notes that pink defeats the purpose of camouflage. "We're savvier than that."

Now, arms makers are offering shorter gun stocks and barrels for women and crossbows requiring less upper-body strength. Apparel makers such as SHE Safari and Foxy Huntress LLC are marketing camouflage expressly to women. "The Foxy Huntress knows she's dressed to kill in more ways than one," says that three-year-old company's Web site, touting "well-designed pieces cut with a female's unique form and needs in mind."