THE severed head of a freshly killed Sambar stag is lying on the ground in Sarah and Matt’s backyard.

Part of his velvet-covered antler was broken when he fell, but otherwise he’s immaculate, his fur the kind of soft grey you see emulated by luxury homeware brands.

The couple’s 20-year-old cat nibbles at the fleshy part of the stag’s neck. We joke that a regular supply of fresh venison is the secret to her longevity.

“Mother nature is a brutal bitch,” wrote anthropologist Dr Ernest Becker, and nobody knows this more than Sarah, who, at 29 is the only woman in the world to have won the prestigious Arthur Bentley hunting award for a 30 inch Sambar stag she shot and harvested in 2017.

Sarah has been hunting for ten years and lives in northeast Victoria surrounded by bush filled with Sambar and Fallow deer, or what environmental scientist Rohan Bilney describes as the most “charismatic of Australia’s invasive species”.

There are feral deer in every Australian state. In Victoria alone hunters killed approximately 57,945 deer in 2013-2014. Parks Victoria speculates there could be up to one million feral deer living in Victoria’s high plains. As numbers increase, so does the damage to some native plant species and ecological communities.

Sarah is also a part of a growing community of female hunters, with the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia (SSAA) confirming an increase in female members. Women now make up about 10% of their membership.

“Women are very good hunters,” Sarah says. “They tend to have patience and intuition. More women are standing up and saying, ‘we can do this too’. And as more women hunt, it gives permission for other women to take part.

“Overall, I’ve felt very supported by other hunters,” Sarah continues. “When I first started going out into the bush alone I was scared about running into male hunters, worried that they would be aggressive towards me. But that’s never happened.”

Daybreak is the best time to hunt as it’s when the deer feed before bedding down for the day. Sarah and I leave her place at 5.30am to drive 45 minutes into the bush. From there we leave the car and walk into the forest. It’s stunningly beautiful, as the sun rises and casts a golden glow over everything.

It’s exciting too. Before today Sarah told me that going for a hunt is not like going for a bushwalk. I didn’t understand, but now I get the primal sense of anticipation. Some hunters use dogs to track and tire their prey; Sarah is a stalker, relying entirely on her senses and her rifle.

Deer stalking, a British term for the “stealthy pursuit of deer on foot with the intention of killing the deer”, it turns out, is hard work. There’s no well-trodden path to follow. We walk straight through the scrub, clambering over fallen tress, dodging cobwebs and climbing steep hills.

“People say, oh you have a gun, it’s easy,” Sarah says. “But it isn’t easy. It’s not like you just go out and shoot a deer. The Sambar, for example, are from India, Ceylon and Malaysia. Their senses are very strong. You have to use stealth, you have to be quiet. You have to watch the direction of the wind because it carries your scent.”

The ground is covered with dry crunchy leaves and twigs. Tactfully Sarah teaches me how to walk more stealthily, demonstrating how she puts her heel down first, rolling down along the outer side of her foot. Somehow she manages to do this while carrying a loaded gun, all the while looking around for signs of deer.

“See this tree,” she points out a thin tree whose bark has turned orange. “You can see this is where a stag has been rubbing his antlers.”

Other times she points out droppings, sometimes belonging to a wallaby or wombat. She can even tell the difference between the droppings of a male deer and a doe.

“If you came out more often you’d get better,” she says kindly as I admit to not hearing the sounds she keeps referring to.

“People who live in the city are used to blocking things out. You have to because there’s so much sensory overload. But when you’re out here, you listen to everything. Often I feel the deer before I see it. It’s like when you look up because you sense someone has been looking at you.”

Sarah is not just a huntress. She’s an animal lover. She and her partner Matt have two dogs, three cats and a cockatoo. Sarah has always ridden and kept horses and has worked as a horse dentist. Both Sarah and Matt grew up on farms and have more connection and knowledge of animals than any vegetarian I know.

“Anyone who has eaten meat has blood on their hands,” Sarah says. “I know it sounds strange, because I kill them, but I love deer. I respect them. But I don’t project human qualities onto a wild animal. A wild animal lives off its instincts; it doesn’t have a personality like a human.

“My cousin is a vegan and she says every life is as important as another. And yes, that’s true. But I hunt as respectfully and as ethically as I can. I never want to see an animal suffer and we use everything. We harvest the meat and freeze it. We give the bones to the dogs. Nothing goes to waste.”

It’s a saying among hunters that you’ve had a good hunt if you so much as see any wildlife. We return empty-handed but help Matt load his chopped up stag into the makeshift cool room. The meat must hang for a week before it’s ready to eat. It’s so heavy I struggle to lift a leg. Matt tells me the leg alone weighs around 40kgs.

“I almost didn’t shoot him,” Matt says. “because he’s still young and will grow into an incredible beast. But the meat on him is perfect for eating and our supplies are running low. This is our Woolworths.”