The Huntress

Ms Triin Roostfeldt crouched down on the damp forest floor, rifle at the ready. The prey finally appeared after 12 hours of hunting but tiredness took over and her eyelids gave in. She jolted awake two minutes later, thankful to find the unsuspecting deer emerging from behind a tree and took aim. This was the defining hunt for Ms Roostfeldt, the first female hunter in Viljandi County, Estonia.

“After I shot it and we carried it out of the mountains, then I thought: I earned it,” Ms Roostfeldt said.

Hunting is big game in the Baltic country, where half of the land — the size of four million rugby fields — is covered in forest.

In the male-dominated field of 15,000 hunters, the number of females has risen over the decade. Amongst them is 34-year-old Ms Roostfeldt who set up the Estonian Women Hunters’ Society in 2015.

When Ms Roostfeldt first started hunting some 17 years ago, huntresses were unheard of — she was the only female out of 100 men in her hunting club. The tides turned in 2010 when the Estonian Hunters’ Society organised a hunt just for women and Ms Roostfeldt was joined by 25 other female counterparts. Today, over 50 huntresses participate in the annual big hunt on Saaremaa Island off Estonia’s west coast.

“If you don’t know that there are people the same way as you are, you are scared to come out,” said Ms Roostfeldt. “That was the time the women hunters came out of the closet.”

The community has been growing each year and in 2016 alone, 320 women received their hunting licence.

Come sunset, the human resource manager at the Environmental Office of Estonia swops her corporate wear for hunting gear.

“It’s a lifestyle. I can’t imagine life without it,” she said.

Ms Roostfeldt surveys a beaver habitat by a marsh. She first fired a shotgun in elementary school when her family used it to make fireworks one new year’s eve. “As it was so heavy and I was 6 or 7, (the impact) blew me away,” she said. She began hunting with her father and elder brother and completed her hunting license at age 16 upon her brother’s insistence.

While stalking a roe deer, it is important to stay quiet and remain unseen. Ms Roostfeldt holds an instrument used to simulate the deer’s mating call. ”You have to trick the animal and then you know you’re worth it,” she said. Ms Roostfeldt said that when she started hunting officially with her hunting club, some of the members had doubted her ability. Over time, her insistent attitude proved them wrong, she added.

Ms Roostfeldt tries out one of the guns at Baltic Hunter, a hunting shop in the town centre that has been operating for 12 years. Unlike ten years ago when there were no merchandise specifically for women, the shop now carries a range of female hunting clothes, said 51-year-old shop owner Mr Mart Merandi. The selection remains small since only one of ten weekly customers are females, he added. Ms Roostfeldt only visits the shop to purchase accessories such as caps and relies on online shopping for hunting clothes and guns.

Beaver skulls, amongst those of other wildlife, are displayed in Ms Roostfeldt’s trophy room. Beavers are her favourite hunt because they are difficult targets. The small animal only comes out of the water in the dark and are in constant motion. “Women hunters, even though they do men’s work, are equal to men when they stand in a forest ,” she said. They do not lose their feminine side either, she added. “We still paint nails, we have red lipstick on and put mascara before we go out. We still stay women.”

One of the trophies, a wild boar’s head, was not borne out of hunting’s pleasure. Hunting is not only a lifestyle but is essential to regulating wildlife population and protecting property, Ms Roostfeldt explained. The African swine fever appeared four years ago in South Estonia and claimed many wild boars. Hunters had to bring down the population to stop the spread of the disease. “I care about the environment in Estonia,” Ms Roostfeldt said. “I do understand that hunting is necessary for keeping the population as it is; not making it any higher so that human beings can live in Estonia peacefully with the animals.”

Ms Roostfeldt started an informative hunting series online, Metsapoole (italics), with her 32-year-old boyfriend Vesto Nõgel, a fellow hunter who films and edits the clips. Together they run Baltic Trophy, a company that assists aspiring hunters with obtaining licenses and conducts tours during hunting seasons.

Ms Roostfeldt’s current home is in a forest 20 minutes away from the town centre, getting her up close and personal with wildlife there. She has lived nearly all her life in the countryside, barring her time pursuing a Political Science degree in Tartu, Estonia’s second largest city. “If you live in the middle of the forest, basically the wolves are watching through your windows,” she said. The woodland setting also allows her to pick up wood and shed antlers for DIY ornamental pieces, such as the lights atop her kitchen sink. “I’m not afraid of the nature and I have studied how to use it for me. I get everything from the nature. I grow my own food, my own vegetables and I hunt my own meat from the forests,” she said.

These coats were made from the beavers Ms Roostfeldt hunted — a few of many items in the house that are by-products of hunting. Beaver fur coats are highly regarded for both style and function as the fur is soft, water repellant and traps heat well.

In their outdoor shed, Ms Roostfeldt and her family share a meal of grilled roe deer meet from a previous hunt and vegetables from their garden. The deer is skinned and gutted with merely a knife and chilled for a day before it is safe for consumption, Mr Nõgel explained. For the couple, it is important to educate their children on nature and hunting. Ms Roostfeld said that her 14-year-old daughter has given her a different insight to hunting that men do not share: “If you give life — and women give life — then maybe it’s easier for us to explain why in some situations you need to take life.”