Women Hunt™ Program Kicks Off-In Texas!

Tiffany Osburn of Dripping Springs, TX loves the great outdoors.

Volunteering for a private lands conservation trust, her heart is to spend as much time as possible beyond the pavement and make a difference for wildlife and wildlands.

“I love the great outdoors, and hunting has been something that I wanted to get into for a long time and have tried different times, but it never really worked out,” Osburn said.

In July, she was reading the Fish & Game report e-newsletter when she saw the announcement of the Women Hunt™outreach of the Wild Sheep Foundation and that they were taking applications for 12 women for a very special hunter training experience at the FTW Ranch near Barksdale.

“I was excited to learn about this and thought I would apply and give it a shot, and here we are,” Osburn said.

Osburn enthusiastically shared her passion for this project as we talked in the lodge at the FTW Ranch. I had the opportunity to stay at the ranch and observe the women going through their training.

Courtesy of WSF and its partners, the participants got a chance to hunt whitetail, and exotic does to help the ranch with their game management objectives.

But before that, they experienced the FTW Ranch’s SAAM New Hunter Program.

To call it comprehensive would be an understatement as the ladies learned everything from gun safety and wildlife identification to field dressing and venison preparation.

The heart of the course was learning to shoot accurately under different kinds of conditions with guidance by world-class shooters and instructors.

Osburn was successful and bagged her first-ever big game animal-a large whitetail doe.

Bea Segura of New Mexico also bagged a doe and said that the experience was an incredible one that she hoped to use to take her hunting to a new level.

“I absolutely love getting out into the great outdoors, and the idea of being able to take my own, healthy, organic meat and provide for my family is very exciting. I am grateful WSF, Women Hunt and the FTW Ranch provided this opportunity”, she said.

Considering some of the women were successful shooting targets out to 700 yards after a few days of training and they were getting to see world-class native and exotic game on a world-class ranch it would be easy to overlook the outreach aspect of what Women Hunt brings to the table.

The ladies learned about the North American Model of Conservation, which is the system that has allowed for abundant game throughout the continent and that utilizes hunting and fishing, among other things, as a mechanism of keeping wildlife populations healthy and the public engaged in nature.

A video address by Becky Humphries, the Executive Director of the National Wild Turkey Federation was provided, and according to Women Hunt Chair Renee Thornton, it was informative and inspiring.

“Becky is an incredible speaker and model of someone who has given many years to conservation. We were very honored to have her introduce the ladies to the North American Model,” Thornton said.

The women were challenged to do conservation and hunter advocacy outreach in their communities and that is already a goal of some of the ladies.

Tiffany Osburn came into the program to gain the skills to be a guide and mentor for youth hunting programs in Texas.

Others spoke of being excited to gain the confidence to represent hunting well and to make a difference for the wildlife they love so much.

Women Hunt™ launched impressively at the FTW Ranch, and the 12 participants will never be the same.

Their lives have been positively impacted and they will no doubt go home to make their own marks on behalf of wildlife and hunters.

For more information on Women Hunt™ click here.

Chester Moore