Wild bunch

Susan Barnhart hunted deer with her father as a girl in Upton, although she never carried a gun. Instead, she learned how to spot signs of the prey on the ground and on trees.

She learned how to serve venison, too. ''I remember the cut deer, and I cranked the handle to make it hamburg," the Westborough mother of two said.

While boys may learn about hunting from their fathers, opportunities for girls are often limited. With that in mind, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife's lineup of education courses includes ''Becoming an Outdoors Woman," providing lessons on using a shotgun, fishing, and hunting as well as general woodcraft.

Amherst College sociology professor Jan Dizard said it's not surprising to see more women exploring sports that traditionally have been male pursuits. While the number of hunters nationally is declining, Dizard said, the percentage of female hunters has increased. The changes also represent a shift in how men and women relate.

''Husbands and wives want to do things together," he said. ''The relationship between spouses . . . as well as between fathers and daughters is more in the direction of egalitarianism."

But many women are not ready to rush out to join their local rod and gun club just yet. That's where Becoming an Outdoors Woman comes in.

Ellie Horwitz, the MassWildlife program's director, said it is drawing plenty of interest, with the classes frequently having waiting lists.

At a recent session, she advised the women to ''shop in the men's section" for the warmest clothing.

Good advice, considering that class outings are held in all weather except blizzards. More than 15 women gathered in Holden on a recent Saturday for a six-hour outdoor workshop on wildlife tracking. The below-freezing temperatures and a stiff wind led three women to drop out in the first half-hour. And snow soon obliterated animal tracks.

Tracking guide Julie Towne was undeterred. She led the group through the woods, pointing out a pungent whiff of red-tailed fox. The scent led her to find signs of their prey -- piles of seed husks left by red squirrels and tiny holes burrowed by meadow voles.

But most of the day was spent inspecting animal waste, or ''scat," at locations she had marked before the tour. After several hours, the women could identify the droppings of otter, long-tailed weasel, and coyote. The process often required Towne to kneel and measure the scat with calipers. She encouraged the others to smell and dissect the droppings.

''Where I work, we have a joke, 'No scat talk at lunch," said Towne, whose day job is fund-raising for the Essex County Greenbelt Association.

Lisa Hayes, 44, a former zookeeper at the Franklin Park Zoo, said she found the process fascinating because she could learn what the animals had eaten and learn about predators.

''I was hoping we'd find owl pellets as well," she said.

Hayes, who grew up in upstate New York surrounded by farmers and hunters, said she collects animal skulls, bones, and feathers. And she likes spending time with her boyfriend while he is hunting.

''The actual shooting I wouldn't participate in," Hayes said. But the tracking, she added, is ''a great thing for everybody to do, regardless of sex."

Towne said not everyone she teaches to track wants to learn to hunt. She said that she had been hunting with a bow for more than a decade and never killed anything -- ''only with my car, inadvertently, an eight-point buck."

She said she was too shy to go to her area's rod and gun clubs to ask for help learning to bow hunt, something she had wanted to do since reading about Native Americans as a child. Several years ago, she spotted a man in a camouflage hat in a restaurant and struck up a conversation. It turns out he was the president of a rod and gun club and became her mentor.

''I probably wouldn't be involved in any of this if someone hadn't taken the time to show me the way," she said.

Julie Lemay, who brought her mother, Kathy, to the outing, said she wanted to learn more about tracking because of her family's longtime interest in the outdoors. Her father is a biology professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester and her family has always camped and hiked together.

The 24-year-old Dorchester resident said she continues to crave adventure. Last year, she enrolled in two state-sponsored classes on shooting sports to get out of her ''comfort zone."

''I'm kind of against hunting in general . . . and it's unlikely I would ever own a gun," she said. ''But this is a different way of thinking and it's really interesting."

Most of the women in the program were older than Lemay, and many were mothers of Boy Scouts. Some, like 64-year-old Iantha Boulanger, were grandmothers.

After a divorce, she took up hunting in her late 40s when she started dating a man who was an avid sportsman.

''If we were going to spend time together, it was going to be in the woods," she said. ''I just took to it."

Over the last several years, she has bagged three deer, including an eight-point buck, as well as a bear. Boulanger owns a 20-gauge Remington shotgun that was built for teenagers, because she couldn't find a comparable weapon designed for women. The Fitchburg resident said she likes all-women outings because men haven't always welcomed her into their hunting circles. ''Some just didn't want me there," she said. ''You're in a man's sport and they don't want to let it go, either."

Barnhart, a computer software engineer, said she took the tracking course hoping to share her lessons with her sons' Scout troop.

But even the Scouts might not be prepared for what she now knows about scat.

''It's just part of nature," Barnhart said. ''But they will definitely be turned off by that."

For more information on Becoming an Outdoors Woman, visit mass.gov/dfwele/dfw and click on the Education link, or call Ellie Horwitz at 508-792-7270.

Megan Woolhouse can be reached at 508-820-4236 or via e-mail at woolhouse@globe.com.