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Chiaki Kodama, a 28-year-old hairdresser and city councillor in Japan's western Fukui prefecture, is among a small but growing number of women entering the male-dominated world of hunting, where it was once taboo for men to speak to a woman before going on a hunt. Kodama blows into her deer whistle and soon a male deer wanders into sight. She slowly takes aim and pulls the trigger of her shotgun. Moments later, she's tracking the wounded animal through the forest. Kodama and her friend Aoi Fukuno found the dead animal resting on a fallen tree, gutted it and laid the carcass in a river to drain the blood. "At first I thought acquiring a license, or becoming a hunter was taboo, but I did some research and realised that there was no such rule. Women are allowed. And then I found out there were other older women who hunted, which inspired me to want to start," Kodama said. Today, as male hunters get older and young people leave rural areas, women are being recruited to help protect farms against rising numbers of deer and wild boar, considered pests by farmers. Of the 105,000 registered hunters in Japan, roughly two-thirds are 60 years or older, according to the National Hunting Association. At its peak in the 1970s, there were more than 500,000 hunters on the island nation. With only 1169 registered female hunters, hunting groups and the government are using social media, special tours and training to lure new recruits. Though times are changing, 69-year-old Yasuyo Kitagawa, an experienced hunter of 20 years, remembers the gender divide she felt with male hunters during her younger days. She said the men would often hunt in groups without her. "There were times I was alone as a woman. I could tell I wasn't truly part of the team," she said. Whether its a male or female hunter, farmer Manabu Ushiyachi said he welcomes anyone to help fend off the wild boars who feast on vegetable crops in the area. "There are farms that have been completely devastated, and I think farms like that will continue to increase," he said, adding that attempts to trap the animals had failed. Japanese farmers have lost 20-23 billion yen ($170 million) annually since 2008 due to rising numbers of deer, wild boar, monkeys and birds, the Ministry of Agriculture said last month. Since the late 1990s the number of wild deer rose from less than 400,000 to more than 3 million this year, according to the Ministry of Environment. The wild boar population has doubled to one million over the same period. The ministry's Wildlife Management Office in Fukui said hunting was necessary to "keep the numbers under control to maintain a healthy ecosystem." But even as more women take up hunting, longheld perceptions are hard to shake. Masami Hata hunts and her father, Masato Hata, a retired bear hunter, still believe that hunting is inherently a male sport. "I believe hunting is fundamentally a part of men's lifestyle and culture. Especially bear hunting deep inside the mountains, I think this is something impossible for women," he said. Fujiko Nagata, a 46-year-old mother, started "Karijo no Kai", or "female hunter group", in March to host leather craft workshops, cooking classes for game meat, and fervently recruit more women. "Most male veteran hunters are close to 70, or have passed the age of 70, and ten years from now, we'll say 'where have they all gone?' There would not be anyone to teach us how to hunt, so I felt a sense of urgency," Nagata said.