RotoRocket
03-11-2007, 01:18 PM
How depraved and unsportsmanlike is this? I don't hunt, but I don't get in anyone's face who does. Just because I find killing living, beautiful animals for sport distasteful doesn't mean I'm going to try and impose my views on others.
I also distinguish between sports hunting and necessity. It doesn't bother me to see indigenous people such as the eskimo population in upper Canada hunt and kill seal, THAT THEY CONSUME EVERY PART OF, as it's the only way they have survived for thousands of years. They waste nothing of the animal. They have a use for every part to help them deal with survival.
But anyone who would participate in this (remote controlled hunting) is a huge jagass that deserves to be beaten severely, IMHO.
If you are a hunter, please petition, along with your fellow sportsmen, your state and national legislators, to ban this practice. Thanks.
Should Killing Be Merely a Mouse Click Away?
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 11, 2007
Slouched at a computer, the hunter perks up as a 12-point buck eases into view on his screen. Maneuvering his mouse, he swivels the rifle and focuses the cross hairs. With a click of the mouse, the rifle fires a bullet, mortally wounding the deer.
Gary Harpole, an Illinois hunter, says remote-control hunting negates what the sport is really about: "getting outdoors, experiencing nature."
Call it hunting by remote control. And though it is still more concept than trend, lawmakers in several states have set their sights on stopping the practice in its tracks.
Illinois State Representative Dan Reitz has proposed banning such hunting in his state, saying that such ready, aim, click kills, or the prospect of them, push the ethical envelope and violate the spirit of fair-chase hunts.
“I just think it’s wrong,” Reitz said, adding that the use of such technology — which features a Web camera and a .22-caliber rifle atop a remote-controlled rig — would “give all sportsmen a black eye.”
Technology that enables people to stalk online and kill real prey has alarmed hunters and lawmakers intent on pre-emptively blocking the practice. About two dozen states already have outlawed the method, which the Humane Society of the United States calls pay-per-view slaughter.
“The animal has no chance,” Arkansas State Senator Ruth Whitaker said earlier this year while introducing a measure that calls for banning potential cyberhunting in her state.
“There’s no challenge for you — except knowing how to use a computer and push a button,” she said. “You never left your tufted sofa. What’s sportsmanlike about that?”
The issue emerged in early 2005, when an entrepreneur from Texas, John Lockwood, set up a Web site that allowed subscribing hunters with a high-speed computer connection to shoot antelope, wild pigs and other game on his 220-acre San Antonio spread via remote control — from anywhere. Lockwood offered to send the animals’ heads to subscribers.
During a demonstration, a friend of Lockwood’s used a computer 45 miles away to shoot a wild hog as it fed at Lockwood’s ranch. But, according to news reports, he only wounded the animal. Lockwood, who was on site, finished the kill.
Lockwood’s venture barely got started before Texas lawmakers shot it down. Since then, other states have hustled to get something on their books barring the practice.
Even die-hard hunters are opposed, saying that shooting an animal via computer is not sporting and does not require the element of fair chase in conventional hunting through forest, field or marsh. Some states have posed similar objections to hunting big game in captivity as trophies.
“We believe sick ideas have a bad way of spreading, so we want to make sure we nip this in the bud and ban it in all 50 states,” Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, said of cyberhunting. The group is also pressing for a federal ban.
Pro-hunting groups, including Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association, also oppose remote-control hunting.
Gary Harpole, an Illinois hunter who figures he has killed 100 deer, most with a bow, said the practice “takes away from what hunting really is all about: getting outdoors, experiencing nature.”
“To me, 90 percent of hunting is the experience, 10 percent is the harvest,” said Harpole, who runs a hunter’s lodge at his rural home. Bagging a buck by computer, he said, “is a lazy way of hunting.”
But Lockwood has said the technology could help people with disabilities or perhaps servicemen overseas shoot game. And an attendant in the blind with the remote-controlled rifle can override any unsafe or unethical shots.
Lockwood could not be reached for this article, but he said last year that legislatures banning the practice had “no clue what they’re passing laws against.”
“Ever since we stopped running after our prey and killing with our hands, we’ve evolved by distancing ourselves further and further from the game and making it more and more efficient for whatever reason we want to take it,” he said.
Reitz is not swayed by such arguments. “There’s a lot of opportunities out there for people with disabilities,” he said. “I just think this is a bad way to do it.”
His bill, which was referred to an Illinois House rules committee on Feb. 22, would amend the state’s wildlife code to bar a person from operating, providing, selling, using or offering “any computer software or service that allows a person not physically present at the hunt site to remotely control a weapon that could be used to take wildlife by remote operation.”
Use of such equipment would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and $1,500 in fines. Those who provided the software or services would face a misdemeanor carrying a possible 364 days in jail and $2,500 in fines.
Missouri already has such a ban on the books, last year adopting an administrative rule specifying that “wildlife may be taken only in the immediate physical presence of the taker and may not be taken by use of computer-assisted remote hunting devices.”
Bill Heatherly, the Missouri Department of Conservation’s wildlife programs supervisor, said he never imagined the need for such a measure despite the sport’s astounding technological leaps since man first chucked rocks to kill dinner.
“I’ve been telling people I’m starting to understand how my father must have felt in his later years,” he said. “Certainly, I didn’t imagine this.”
I also distinguish between sports hunting and necessity. It doesn't bother me to see indigenous people such as the eskimo population in upper Canada hunt and kill seal, THAT THEY CONSUME EVERY PART OF, as it's the only way they have survived for thousands of years. They waste nothing of the animal. They have a use for every part to help them deal with survival.
But anyone who would participate in this (remote controlled hunting) is a huge jagass that deserves to be beaten severely, IMHO.
If you are a hunter, please petition, along with your fellow sportsmen, your state and national legislators, to ban this practice. Thanks.
Should Killing Be Merely a Mouse Click Away?
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 11, 2007
Slouched at a computer, the hunter perks up as a 12-point buck eases into view on his screen. Maneuvering his mouse, he swivels the rifle and focuses the cross hairs. With a click of the mouse, the rifle fires a bullet, mortally wounding the deer.
Gary Harpole, an Illinois hunter, says remote-control hunting negates what the sport is really about: "getting outdoors, experiencing nature."
Call it hunting by remote control. And though it is still more concept than trend, lawmakers in several states have set their sights on stopping the practice in its tracks.
Illinois State Representative Dan Reitz has proposed banning such hunting in his state, saying that such ready, aim, click kills, or the prospect of them, push the ethical envelope and violate the spirit of fair-chase hunts.
“I just think it’s wrong,” Reitz said, adding that the use of such technology — which features a Web camera and a .22-caliber rifle atop a remote-controlled rig — would “give all sportsmen a black eye.”
Technology that enables people to stalk online and kill real prey has alarmed hunters and lawmakers intent on pre-emptively blocking the practice. About two dozen states already have outlawed the method, which the Humane Society of the United States calls pay-per-view slaughter.
“The animal has no chance,” Arkansas State Senator Ruth Whitaker said earlier this year while introducing a measure that calls for banning potential cyberhunting in her state.
“There’s no challenge for you — except knowing how to use a computer and push a button,” she said. “You never left your tufted sofa. What’s sportsmanlike about that?”
The issue emerged in early 2005, when an entrepreneur from Texas, John Lockwood, set up a Web site that allowed subscribing hunters with a high-speed computer connection to shoot antelope, wild pigs and other game on his 220-acre San Antonio spread via remote control — from anywhere. Lockwood offered to send the animals’ heads to subscribers.
During a demonstration, a friend of Lockwood’s used a computer 45 miles away to shoot a wild hog as it fed at Lockwood’s ranch. But, according to news reports, he only wounded the animal. Lockwood, who was on site, finished the kill.
Lockwood’s venture barely got started before Texas lawmakers shot it down. Since then, other states have hustled to get something on their books barring the practice.
Even die-hard hunters are opposed, saying that shooting an animal via computer is not sporting and does not require the element of fair chase in conventional hunting through forest, field or marsh. Some states have posed similar objections to hunting big game in captivity as trophies.
“We believe sick ideas have a bad way of spreading, so we want to make sure we nip this in the bud and ban it in all 50 states,” Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, said of cyberhunting. The group is also pressing for a federal ban.
Pro-hunting groups, including Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association, also oppose remote-control hunting.
Gary Harpole, an Illinois hunter who figures he has killed 100 deer, most with a bow, said the practice “takes away from what hunting really is all about: getting outdoors, experiencing nature.”
“To me, 90 percent of hunting is the experience, 10 percent is the harvest,” said Harpole, who runs a hunter’s lodge at his rural home. Bagging a buck by computer, he said, “is a lazy way of hunting.”
But Lockwood has said the technology could help people with disabilities or perhaps servicemen overseas shoot game. And an attendant in the blind with the remote-controlled rifle can override any unsafe or unethical shots.
Lockwood could not be reached for this article, but he said last year that legislatures banning the practice had “no clue what they’re passing laws against.”
“Ever since we stopped running after our prey and killing with our hands, we’ve evolved by distancing ourselves further and further from the game and making it more and more efficient for whatever reason we want to take it,” he said.
Reitz is not swayed by such arguments. “There’s a lot of opportunities out there for people with disabilities,” he said. “I just think this is a bad way to do it.”
His bill, which was referred to an Illinois House rules committee on Feb. 22, would amend the state’s wildlife code to bar a person from operating, providing, selling, using or offering “any computer software or service that allows a person not physically present at the hunt site to remotely control a weapon that could be used to take wildlife by remote operation.”
Use of such equipment would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and $1,500 in fines. Those who provided the software or services would face a misdemeanor carrying a possible 364 days in jail and $2,500 in fines.
Missouri already has such a ban on the books, last year adopting an administrative rule specifying that “wildlife may be taken only in the immediate physical presence of the taker and may not be taken by use of computer-assisted remote hunting devices.”
Bill Heatherly, the Missouri Department of Conservation’s wildlife programs supervisor, said he never imagined the need for such a measure despite the sport’s astounding technological leaps since man first chucked rocks to kill dinner.
“I’ve been telling people I’m starting to understand how my father must have felt in his later years,” he said. “Certainly, I didn’t imagine this.”