Hunting is about to get more pink in Minnesota. Here's how it became legal. 
6/3/17The blaze pink hunting fashion trend is about to be legal in Minnesota, and everything about it is controversial.
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Under a provision Gov. Mark Dayton signed Tuesday, hunters will be allowed to wear blaze pink in addition to blaze orange, starting this fall.The curious tale of blaze pink featured hunters seeking to boost their numbers, allegations of sexism and ignorance of color-blindness. much of that played out when the House approved the 145-page game and fish bill, which included the provision, during a Sunday floor debate.
The debate included invocations of “liberty,” an implication that anyone opposed to blaze pink is against breast cancer survivors and the wonderment of how the color — which appears to have no organized scientific or commercial push behind it — keeps surfacing.
‘ZOMBIE PROVISION’In the recent House debate, Rep. Mike Freiberg, a Democrat from Golden Valley, described it as “this Zombie blaze pink provision that just won’t go away.”
The Wisconsin lawmaker who first proposed blaze pink in 2015 — the first known proposal anywhere — initially said it would help get women and girls involved in the traditionally male-dominated pursuit. Rep. Nick Milroy, D-South Range, said he came up with the idea while mulling declining numbers of hunters in Wisconsin and nationally.
Pink was already surfacing in outdoors shops, but only as an accent color in gear for women or girls, or to promote a cause, such as breast cancer research.
But Milroy’s female-hunter-recruiting argument, backed by Wisconsin’s male-dominated Sportsmen’s Caucus, was rebuked by a number of women’s hunting groups and prominent female hunters. To presume women and girls would take up hunting because they could suddenly wear a pink was presumptuous, they argued.
But other women hunters said they didn’t care, and the bill trudged forward.
HUNTER SAFETYThe reason most states require hunters to wear blaze orange is simple: It’s so obnoxiously bright and unnatural hunters will notice each other and not shoot each other. It worked; the introduction of blaze orange decades ago correlated with a reduction in such hunting mishaps, according to data from several states, including Minnesota. As a side benefit, deer only see it as a shade of gray.
And fluorescent pink?The Wisconsin Sportsmen’s Caucus enlisted Majid Sarmadi, a professor and expert on the science of color at the University of Wisconsin. He concluded that the right shades of pink could be even brighter to the human eye than blaze orange — and that deer would likely notice pink even less.
The pink option became Wisconsin law.
MINNESOTA GETS PINKAfter watching the debate in Wisconsin, then-Minnesota state Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Cedar, introduced a similar version — as did other lawmakers around the country. Hackbarth and other lawmakers said there was no secret lobbying from clothing manufacturers, no centrally organized political push. Just a bunch of guys reading about the Wisconsin plan and liking the idea of it.
“There’s no client in this whatsoever,” Hackbarth, now a lobbyist, said in an interview. “I just thought — and still think — it’s a probably good idea: Brighter for people, duller for deer. And if gals who who are required to wear blaze orange want to wear pink, now they can. I suspect you’ll see quite a few men wearing it, too.”
Hackbarth’s initial bill failed. But blaze pink lived.
And so did the controversy.
“I don’t think that anyone’s going to take on getting their firearms certification, learning how to hunt, or spending hours in the cold in the woods just because they get to wear a certain color,” Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, D-Roseville, a hunter, said as the House opened debate on the idea in May. “We’re actually not solving a problem. We’re creating a problem.”
Rep. Dan Fabian, R-Roseau said blaze pink permission was not an attempt to solve any problem.
“When my granddaughter talks to me about going hunting with Grandpa Dan, and I ask her, ‘Do you want to wear blaze orange or blaze pink?’ she wants to wear blaze pink,” Fabian said. “I’m not trying to solve a problem. I’m trying to let people wear what they want to wear when they’re deer hunting. … It’s question of liberty.”
The word, a favorite of the political right, drew chuckling approval from some Republicans in the chamber and audible scoffs from some Democrats.
Freiberg said his 7-year-old daughter’s fashion preference shouldn’t be a factor. “She might be more willing to go hunting if she could wear Pokemon clothes. She’d be all over that … but it’s not a question of liberty. It’s a question of safety.”
Rep. Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, who breaks with his party on occasion, spoke passionately on pink’s behalf, citing his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis.
“Pink is the color to show support for breast cancer,” Hamilton said. “She’s a survivor. I am proud and I am thrilled now that I have a choice to purchase blaze punk and show support for my wife and any other woman who has survived.”
IS PINK SAFER? COLOR-BLIND SPOT? The Minnesota DNR did not endorse blaze pink. No studies have proved it is safer. Some color-blind workers who deal with fluorescent pink in land surveying and construction, where it has been used to paint or flag points of note, say they can see blaze orange, but not pink. Red-green color blindness affects 4 percent to 8 percent of the male population and about 0.5 percent of the female population.
“I happen to be one of the 8 percent,” said Freiberg, the Democratic state representative. He said studies show it would be harder for him to see blaze pink than blaze orange.
Experts have stated they would need to test specific pink for safety — but, unlike blaze orange, there is no blaze pink standard. It’s unclear how much variability there might be in the clothing hunters actually don come fall.
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