From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Mar 17 2002 - 08:56:17 MST
spike66 wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >butler@comp-lib.org wrote:
> >
> >>http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,50483,00.html
> >>
> >>Point-'n'-Shoot Sound Makes Waves
> >>
> What I want is the opposite. I want to have a pair of microphones
> that can pinpoint the direction of a sound. Perhaps the technology
> is adaptable.
>
> What I have in mind is a new sport, related to hunting. Currently
> hunting is not even what I would call a sport, since there is no way
> the hunter can lose. The hunter can win: the prey loses its life. If
> the hunter misses and the game escapes, one would have to call it
> a draw, for neither "competitor" has gained or lost.
This isn't really accurate. While in the modern world, a hunter goes
home and eats his supermarket steaks, there is a cost in that he is not
able to partake of the healthier venison, and is thus imposing health
risks by not 'winning' in the hunting game. Of course, this isn't as bad
as going home hungry without any food for your family, as hunters used
to (and many still do around the world).
>
> Another drawback to the current hunting "sport" is that we need to
> pay all these game wardens to ensure the animals have a chance.
> These require a bureaucracy and cost tax money, most of which
> is paid by those who do not hunt.
This is also false. The cost of state and federal wildlife protection
and conservancy is MORE than paid for by hunting license fees. There is,
in fact, a distinct surplus which the anti-hunting bureaucrats tried in
the last administration to pillage for use in promoting the anti-hunting
message.
The fact is that hunters have paid for and engaged in far more wildlife
habitat conservation and reconstruction in the last several decades than
the anti-hunter crusaders. Non-hunting wilderness recreational
activities pay little or none for wildlife conservation. The taxes they
pay generally go ONLY to the construction and maintenance of
infrastructure that benefits their own sports: boat docks and ramps,
hiking trails, camping areas, and bridges, and even then, they pay only
a fraction, in most cases, of these costs, siphoning other taxpayer
monies for their activities.
>
> Suppose instead we released into the wild a number of game
> animals that could shoot back? Remember that robo-lamb idea?
> What if we made a robo-deer with a reverse point-n-shoot
> device that could react to the sound of gunshots, estimate the
> position of the shooter and return fire? Would not that be a bit
> more sporting? Would not that add a whole new dimension to
> the "sport" of hunting? Would that not add a certain "excitement"
> and "thrill" to hunting? That is an activity I would be willing to
> call a "sport".
The problem with this is that the robot is not an actual animal
defending itself, it is the property of the state, and as such the state
would be found liable for the deaths an injuries imposed.
>
> We know that some unsporting individuals sneak right up on
> the prey and fire from short range. Such a device would
> surely keep the hunters back at a sporting couple hundred meters,
> for he would not want to take return fire at close range.
What a misrepresentation. Who have you been listening to, spike?
"Sneaking up on prey" is the most difficult thing to do, so it is hardly
'unsporting'. The unsporting way would be to shoot from long range or
from aircraft. Such practices, in many cases, result in far more
wounding of animals which get away only to die very painfully in the
wild than a quick death imposed from close range.
>
> Game wardens have trouble with drunken proles firing at game
> from the road. A robo-deer would discourage this by putting
> holes in the side of Billy Bob's pickup truck, thus reducing the
> need for expensive state employees.
Actually, we already have 'robo-deer' that wardens use, though they do
not shoot back. There are also robo-turkeys and robo-pheasant. Wardens
set them up by a road and lay in wait for road hunters to come by to
take potshots. This is very effective for nailing these types.
>
> Now of course, there is some risk that hunters involved in such
> sport might get injured or seriously killed. But this might actually
> increase the appeal of the game, for most popular sports involve
> some form of danger. If some wimpy hunter is too afraid to
> take a little return fire, he is free to use a safer and quieter
> alternative such as bow and arrow, which really does give
> the prey a fighting chance.
Those who are 'not wimpy' already engage in hunting which incurs
significant risks. Moose hunting, for example, is not just shooting at
stupid and tame ungulates. Moose are, in fact, quite agressive during
the hunting season (which is in conjunction with the rutting season) and
will frequently charge hunters. The moose hunt my brother and cousin
engaged in a few years ago resulted in the bull moose getting up and
charging my brother after four shots to the heart had felled him. I know
of a fellow my father works with who was gored in the hand by a bull
moose he had shot several times as he was being charged.
I have seen deer hunters who were charged by bucks and kicked and gored
(generally because they applied doe scent to their clothes).
This is just in north america, where you can also hunt grizzly bear in
Alaska with similar levels of risk. You can travel to Africa if you have
the green to hunt elephant (which are NOT endangered), or the highly
dangerous cape bull buffalo, among others. In asia there is the Siberian
brown bear which one can hunt which are very dangerous.
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