Drone-Assisted Hunting To Be Illegal In Alaska

garymortimer (1882326) writes in with news about rules for hunting with drones in Alaska. "At its March 14-18 meeting in Anchorage, the seven-member Alaska Board of Game approved a measure to prohibit hunters from spotting game with such aircraft, often called drones. While the practice does not appear to be widespread, Alaska Wildlife Troopers said the technology is becoming cheaper, easier to use and incorporates better video relay to the user on the ground. A drone system allowing a hunter or helper to locate game now costs only about $1,000, said Capt. Bernard Chastain, operations commander for the Wildlife Troopers. Because of advances in the technology and cheaper prices, it is inevitable hunters seeking an advantage would, for example, try to use a drone to fly above trees or other obstacles and look for a moose or bear to shoot, he said."

Comments

Bans Drones not Guns.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they trying to protect?

Re:Bans Drones not Guns.

[bored_engineer]

Probably less affluent hunters. Using aircraft (or FPV drones) would allow wealthy hunters to potentially lock out subsistence hunters who have little to no income, or perhaps for whom this is an important cultural activity, rather than a fun trip for the weekend.

Re:Bans Drones not Guns.

[DarkOx]

its also because hunting is supposed to be a 'sport'. Hunters constantly are getting access to better and better technology, the Moose, and deer not so much. They playing field is already plenty slanted.

Over hunting can ruin things for everyone, even non hunters. There is a legitimate social interest in NOT allowing hunters to become more effective.

In some ways hunting on public game lands is like an MMO. Some people might like to use cheat codes, to avoid the grind of tracking and stalking or sitting and waiting, potentially spending all weekend and coming home without a prize, etc. If you let some people do this though it would ruin the 'game' for everyone.

Re:Bans Drones not Guns.

[davester666]

Well, obviously the moose and deer have to evolve faster.

Re:Bans Drones not Guns.

[AK Marc]

If everyone who went got their limit, there'd be nothing left. The limit is to prevent people from taking enough do that a few could cause a problem.

Bear baiting is illegal, and hunting on the same day as you flew was already illegal, it looks like they are just expanding "flew" to include viewing areal surveillance. It's not a big change in law, just generalizing and existing law slightly.

Re:Bans Drones not Guns.

[Oligonicella]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Educate yourself.

Redefine hunting.

[Ranbot]

Because at some point you can't call this "hunting" anymore. Good for Alaska.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[Ranbot]

Or did you assume there was a gun on it?

Nope, I read the article just fine and didn't assume anything. We don't let hunters use automatic rifles. Many states out-law "spot-lighting" of deer for good reason. We don't let fisherman use electro-shock or dynamite to catch fish. There are reasons to limit technology in hunting for the purpose of sport and to give the animals a chance.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[TheCarp]

Actually, I think there are a few legitimate questions here.

Aside from being done to control populations, it is also done as an activity people enjoy. So there is reason to not make it as efficient as possible. In fact, the worst case scenario for most hunters would be that it become so efficient that the people with the nicest toys end the season before they have a chance to do any hunting.

Hunters already have plenty of advantage over their prey.

I mean I generally agree when it comes to straight up problem solving but, when entertainment and sport is part of the process efficient technology is sometimes counterproductive to other goals.

I could download a bot to play video games for me too. Perhaps it could more efficiently gaurd the bomb in counter strike than I could, thus solving that problem, and leaving me to go do other things.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[CastrTroy]

There's always questions around this about "how much restriction is too much restriction?". There's places that don't allow barbs on fishing hooks. Also, hunting isn't just a sport, for many it's also a source of food. Fishing can be a sport because you can do catch and release. Most other forms of hunting I'm aware of aim to kill the animal. So while they may be "sport", there's very real consequences for the animals in question. As long as there are limits on how many animals you're allowed to kill in a season, should it really matter how you went about tracking and killing said animal?

Re:Redefine hunting.

[ColdWetDog]

Not for bear or moose. You could do it, but it's not common - as opposed to deer. The latter often use the same trails day in and day out so parking yourself in one place that you know the animals traverse is a good strategy. Bear wander all over the place. Moose are sort of in the middle.

In Alaska, the big 'purisim' issue is black bear baiting. That's still legal - and blatant cheating IMHO. As would be using drones. In most western states it is illegal to use aircraft to spot game within 24 - 72 hours of the hunt (depends on the state). This would be just like that only easier to do. You can buy one of these for a couple of hours of air time.

That said, you'd have to have a pretty powerful drone to have the kind of range needed to be useful. Well within technological limits and getting closer to being easily affordable. Remember, bear hunting clients spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a brown bear. Perfectly insane, but that's human nature. Bear guides might want to use this sort of thing for an extra edge - you don't want your client to go home empty handed.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[thunrida]

Monty Python said it nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Redefine hunting.

[shadowrat]

As long as there are limits on how many animals you're allowed to kill in a season, should it really matter how you went about tracking and killing said animal?

That was my first thought too. I suspect that the limits are based on a reasonable expectation of how many animals people are going to kill while walking around and just looking for them unassisted. When the DNR gives out permits to kill 500 moose, it's probably done with the assumption that only 45% of those hunters will succeed. Now, if it was suddenly way easier for the hunters to find the moose, the DNR might have severely overestimated how many permits they could safely give out. It's easier to simply ban the use of drones for scouting out game than to recalibrate your culling numbers with data based on how drones affect success.

It's also probably in the state's interest to keep hunting reasonably difficult. if they start giving out only half the number of permits because people are just going to kill 2x as many moose with their technology, suddenly, there aren't as many reasons for tourists to come in for that activity.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[ColdWetDog]

I'm sure it's going to happen - after all Alaskans are famous for using any advantage over the natural environment that they can get away with. It is telling that one of the most popular bumper stickers just says "Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill".

Re: Redefine hunting.

[O('_')O_Bush]

Bow hunting is for unethical assholes. Humane hunters and those that respect wildlife use firearms.

No matter how good of a bow hunter you are or how good your aim is, simple fact is that an arrow travels at a third the speed of sound, meaning game can both see and hear your shot long before the arrow arrives. Every bow hunting season, forums are slammed by bow hunters that take a heart shot, the buck digs off at first sound, and the arrow ends up in its gut because it had time to travel the foot and a half or so to turn a good shot into an ethical hunter's worst nightmare.

Rifles do not have that problem. Bullet arrives too soon after first flash for game to react ( usually traveling 10x faster than an arrow ).

Anyways, as for drones, I don't mind so much that it allows hunters to find game, as infrared does a similar job. The problem I have is that it allows a hunter to know about game that is far away or hidden, encouraging long-distance shots (as soon as distanced game becomes visible), and thereby decreasing the chance of a clean kill.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[BitZtream]

My $600 drone has a range of about 30km, and its a Quad, the most inefficient type. You aren't going to travel on foot further than my cheap drone can survey for you.

Top it off, a (quality) drone based on a sailplane design could go as low as $400-500 and add an order of magnitude to flight time/range. Hit up HobbyKing if you don't care about quality and maybe loosing it and you're talking a couple hundred bucks by using the Chinese rip off copies.

Re: Redefine hunting.

[Ardyvee]

Five, ten minutes seems like an eternity for me, one who does not hunt.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[CanHasDIY]

Real men bow hunt, firearms are for lazy assholes.

What, no atlatl?

Pussy.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[Solandri]

Your mistake is the romantic, disturbing, and false notion that 'hunting' is meant to be fair to both parties.

Where do people get this strange, disturbing, and false notion that hunting is supposed to be fair?

Hunting is a game of probability. Drop your typical burger-eating city dweller in the woods with a rifle (or bow if you prefer) and they have practically zero chance of finding anything to kill worth eating. Study and learn the behavior of your prey and that probability increases. Learn how to avoid alerting the prey to your presence and that probability increases more. If you properly maintain your equipment and practice with it, the probability increases even more. That's what hunting is about - self improvement, discipline, and preparation. The quarry you gain at the end (if you're lucky) is just your prize for all that work.

Because it's a probability game, the game is most fun if the probability for success is low (but not too low so as to be a frustrating waste of time). That's where improvements in probability make the biggest difference. If knowing what a twig broken by a passing deer looks like improves my chances of success by 5%, that makes a huge difference if my pre-existing chances were 10%. Not that big a difference if they were 50%. Likewise, the game becomes pointless as the probability gets close to 100%. That's why pre-rigged shoots (where a farm-raised "wild" animal is released in the target area for you to kill), using drones, and throwing sticks of dynamite into a lake are frowned upon - they defeat the whole point. Yes you could just walk up to the dart board and insert all the darts into the bulls eye. Or just reveal every questionable square in Minefield. But that defeats the whole point - making the process challenging enough so as to reward self-improvement, discipline, and preparation.

It was never about fairness. The only people who think that it was are folks who get their meat from a grocery store and have no idea what goes into producing it. The animals they eat were born in captivity, lived in captivity, and were slaughtered in captivity. I don't hunt, but I do fish. The animals I eat were born free, lived free to do whatever they wanted, and were captive only in the last minute or so of their lives just before they were captured and slaughtered (which incidentally is how 99% of animals die even if they're not killed by a hunter or fisherman). Yet somehow I'm the bad guy?

Re:Redefine hunting.

[Jason Levine]

I have no problem with someone thinking of hunting as a sport on two conditions:

1) They eat everything they kill. No shooting a bear, ripping out a few teeth as a trophy and leaving the rest there to rot. If you're going to shoot something, be prepared to eat it.

2) You need to track it down yourself. No climbing a ladder to a cozy "tree shooting range" and having someone push a deer into your line of sight.

I'll append these with a disclaimer that I don't hunt myself. Partly because I'm not sure I could abide by my own rules. Also, given my horrid aim and tendency to be a klutz, it's probably better that way for everyone involved.

Re: Redefine hunting.

[newcastlejon]

There's reasons why people practice this form of hunting for a hundred thousand years.

Because they hadn't invented guns yet. Give a subsistence hunter a choice between a bow and a rifle with free ammo and see what they choose. Even back when people were hunting with bits of flint on the end of sticks they cared about reducing the suffering of what they killed; that's to say nothing of wanting a more reliable means to bring down one's next meal.

Re: Redefine hunting.

[Rhacman]

My brother and I use hammers for ranged attacks all the time. It's a clean kill in one hit if they don't have any power-ups.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[Oligonicella]

That last was overboard. Remember too we are also *the* species that will, with great frequency, go out of its way to help another species., both individually and in toto. Enough so, that other non-domestic species are known to come to humans for aid on occasion. We are a conundrum to ourselves and everyone else.

Re: Redefine hunting.

[LoRdTAW]

I'm not a hunter and even I can see the simple logic which you have missed. Simply put, hunting with a bow is much harder than with a rifle. You have to get closer and be much, much more stealthy. You can rifle hunt with a scope and take down prey from 200 meters or more. With a bow you have to be close, probably under 50 meters. You also have to take aim, draw, and release without spooking the animal. Olympic archery is what, 70 meters? And that is on a range where you can be as noisy and full of movement as you want.

So they limit the rifle hunters to a smaller window as they can potentially harm the game population to a point where they are now over hunting. The bow hunters aren't a threat to the game populations as they take in far less prey.

Re: Redefine hunting.

[newcastlejon]

There's ample evidence for animal worship by palaeolithic humans. I was specifically thinking of the Celts, but it doesn't seem that far of a stretch for me to assume that humans in general would try to treat their prey well. Humane slaughter formed quite a large part of abrahamic religions still practiced today, but even the oldest branches of those don't stretch back quite as far as flint as far as I know.

If that's not good enough a citation then fine, you win. Now I'm curious how you can justify the ethics of bow hunting just for mere target practice in case civilisation somehow comes to an end. You might as well argue that soldiers should have to practice with longbows in case their guns all decide to fall apart at exactly the same moment.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[Smauler]

Besides, I've never been to a supermarket that serves venison.

They don't have venison in the US? Every supermarket has venison in the UK, even the cheapest ones like Lidl and Aldi. They don't have a big selection, though.

Re:Redefine hunting.

[CanHasDIY]

Besides, I've never been to a supermarket that serves venison.

They don't have venison in the US? Every supermarket has venison in the UK, even the cheapest ones like Lidl and Aldi. They don't have a big selection, though.

Not at your typical, mass-market grocery store. At least, not at any of the ones around here, can't speak for other areas of the country. In the US, "meat," at least in supermarket terms, equals beef/chicken/pork. Occasionally you'll see oddities like bison or ostrich, but it's rare and typically prohibitively expensive.

I've seen venison a few times at the storefronts for some of the local farms and slaughterhouses, although it's typically a seasonal affair; I'd rather spend $12 on a tag, $10 on fuel, $1 on a round of .270 Winchester, and go shoot one of my own, rather than spend $6.99/lb at some boutique market.

Conservation is a big part of the culture around these parts.

Fine!

[DaMattster]

Then law enforcement using drones should be illegal too.

Re:Fine!

[Jmc23]

ah, you sound like one of those civilized types that prefers his animals to live shitty lives with no freedoms and then nicely packaged up for others to feast on. Strangely, exactly the same way a civilized person lives and dies.

Bah

[grub]

Real men drone hunt in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Sadistic

[sjbe]

Just because you call it game doesn't make it a sport. I really do not understand the appeal of killing animals for fun. To get a meal? Sure. To deal with a pest? Makes sense. To protect yourself? No problem even though it rarely happens. For environmental stewardship? Great. But just for fun? With high powered rifles and drones? That makes that person a sadistic asshole. We're already WAY too good at killing things. If you are out to kill things for "fun" then make it a level playing field and do it with nothing more than a knife.

Someone who would use a drone to hunt is like someone who plays a game with "god mode" enabled. They're completely missing the point. The point isn't to kill the animal at any cost. Someone who can afford a drone isn't doing it for their next meal. They're just killing to get their rocks off. Pity we aren't more evolved than that.

Re:Sadistic

[CanHasDIY]

Just because you call it game doesn't make it a sport. I really do not understand the appeal of killing animals for fun

Do you understand the appeal of first person shooters? Same concept, only with sport hunting you get a meatspace trophy to hang on the wall, as opposed to some sort of digital achievement.

Not that I agree with the practice (much the opposite), but I do understand it.

As for "hunting with drones," I also see a legitimate use case: scouting. Being able to establish migratory and feeding habits without having to hike through miles of wilderness and spend weeks camping along deer trails would be a real boon to those of us who like to hunt (for food), but work real jobs and thus do not have the time necessary to establish said patterns.

Re:Sadistic

[hippo]

It's not a level playing filed if you carry a knife. Vladimir Putin strangles them with his bare hands and Chuck Norris just kills them with a single punch.

Re:Sadistic

[jythie]

Which is kinda the disturbing part since it speaks to hunters seeing animals as equivalent to those digital representations, no life before the player enters the scene, doesn't feel pain, exists for their amusement.

Which is why, even though it sounds a bit hyperbolic, 'psychopath' is really not that far off. Granted the disorder is only really defined in terms of not having empathy for other humans, history has shown we have a rather sliding scale about what counts as 'like us' and what does not, and all that really varies is where the disconnect is.

Re:Sadistic

[CanHasDIY]

Which is kinda the disturbing part since it speaks to hunters seeing animals as equivalent to those digital representations, no life before the player enters the scene, doesn't feel pain, exists for their amusement.

Oh please.

See, this is the other reason* why the hunting community ignores you "environmentalists," - the hyperbole. I mean, really, calling a person a 'psychopath' because they hunt for food, rather than wait for someone else to kill it for them? Childish narcissism doesn't even begin to describe it.

Re:Sadistic

[misexistentialist]

I think most hunters eat what they kill. Few need to though, which is why it's more of a "sport" similar to how it's called "gardening" not "farming". Is spending the weekend hiking in the woods using some skills to get meat really more sadistic than sitting on the couch watching TV and eating the wings of a dozen factory farmed birds?

Re:Sadistic

[CanHasDIY]

We are specifically talking about people who hunt for fun, for the social experience and the enjoyment of tracking down and killing something.

No, you're personally attacking people who engage in a certain activity because you, for whatever reason, have subjectively decided that no one has a legitimate need to engage in said activity, and thus anyone who does is [insert favorite ad hominem here].

Talk about mental gymnastics - you ever eat a cheeseburger from a commercial outfit? Do you have any idea where that meat came from, or how the cow it was made out of lived before having it's neck cut so it bleeds out onto the slaugherhouse floor, in full view of all the other cattle? Yet here you are, judging me, because I occasionally take the time and effort to gather a bit of my own (meat that cannot be bought in a store), meanwhile as engaging in conservation efforts.

Or do you think letting hundreds of thousands of animals die of starvation and disease is a better idea than actively culling a handful every year? Because that would be kind of ironic.

Re:Sadistic

[Tarlus]

Hunting is not for everybody and not every person should be expected to understand the appeal. As a person who has hunted for most of his life, I will say that while I greatly enjoy the process of doing my research, learning the patterns of the animal, learning the lay of the land and practicing my skill set in such a way as to be undetectable when on the field. It is far more easily said than done and can be a tremendous challenge, depending on what it is you are trying to hunt. Most hunts you may not even find your quarry and you will wind up empty-handed.

All that said, I have never enjoyed nor will I ever enjoy killing things. But I do not waste them and I find it to be a far more ethical and healthy alternative to beef. It saddens me to say that not all people who hunt share my perspective, and there are some murderous sons-of-bitches who just like to kill things and create the negative stereotype you perceive, but please understand that does not describe the majority of us.

I wholeheartedly agree that the use of drones tips the scales unfairly and hope to see every other state government take queues from Alaska.

A lot of hunters are asshats

[Gothmolly]

In Maine it's legal to bait an area until bears come to it, then chase them up a tree with a pack of dogs, then walk up and shoot them out of the tree.

This pervasive mentality (shooting wolves from a helicopter) and now this new drone thing is what gives hunters a bad name.

What's the difference

[JimMcc]

What's the difference between a hunter with a drone and a factory fishing vessel with spotter planes? Is it scale? money? Both models are using airborne technology to assist in the gathering of food. If we are going to ban aerial observation, than it should be for all applications and uses of it regardless of how monied the operator is.

Re:What's the difference

[Solandri]

What's the difference between a hunter with a drone and a factory fishing vessel with spotter planes? Is it scale? money? Both models are using airborne technology to assist in the gathering of food.

Alaska does a really good job managing its fisheries; probably the best in the world. Commercial fishing "season" is not just a "catch as much as you can" free-for-all. It starts on a specified date, each ship is allocated a certain tonnage it's allowed to catch, and they have until a certain date to catch it. The use of spotter planes (actually I'm not sure they use those in Alaska, but hypothetically) would allow a ship to meet its quota more quickly, thus minimizing cost and risk to the lives of those at sea.

If there were commercial hunting, then it'd be the same. Drones would make sense because it would make the activity safer and more cost-effective. However, "commercial hunting" turned into cattle ranching several thousand years ago. The only remaining forms of hunting are sustenance and recreational. While an argument for drones could be made for sustenance hunters (people living in remote areas who have to kill wild game for their food), it contradicts the rationale for recreational hunters who are presumably doing it for "the thrill of the hunt."

Re:Whats the poing of hunting as a sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is shooting something from hundreds of feet away with a high powered rifle any kind of sport?

Yea know, most hunters like myself hunt for food. I don't see a difference between using a rifle to put dinner on my family's plate or a cow that has been raised in a pen for its life only to be ground up, mixed with horse meat, processed in a plant with similar cleanliness to an auto garage, then sold to the customer via a dollar menu.

Perfectly good State Law and Rule Making

[nevermindme]

Kudos to Fish and Wildlife of Alaska. Drones are no different than shooting from a quad or using a helicopter or plane for wildlife spotting, It is fine to use that gear to scout the area the day before, but once sun rises the day of the hunt it is the one sport that for all practical purposes stuck in 1910 technology. It would be nice to have a regulation that you can search for a wounded animal with a drone as that is where a few hunters run out of steam, in the tracking or chase of elk or moose that didn't get hit with the hunters goal of a ethical mortal shot.

A drone in the back woods with 3 cans of bear repellant and 3 noisemakers would be a very ethical use of drones to keep bears and hunters apart. And we are fooling ourselves if we think illegal hunters and poachers wouldn't use a easy to fly drone to monitor police activity.

Re:Fair is fair

[rossdee]

Citizens should have the right to arm bears

Re:Whats the poing of hunting as a sport?

[pushing-robot]

How is shooting something from hundreds of feet away with a high powered rifle any kind of sport?

That's because by the original rules the deer got the rifles every alternate week. Ever since we changed things around I've boycotted the sport.

Re:Red herring arguments

[jythie]

Actually, you might be surprised how much of the US population still hunts for food. Granted these are generally poor rural people and thus are poorly represented on the internet and media so they are somewhat invisible, but there is a significant number of them spread around the country and they hunt more frequently then the recreational crowd.

But

[slapout]

Is it legal to hunt drones in Alaska?

Hunting for food is not needed in the US

[sjbe]

Actually, you might be surprised how much of the US population still hunts for food.

The answer is a very small percentage and close to none of them actually need to do it. We spend over $22 billion on hunting which could easily feed every person in the US that actually needs to hunt to put food on the table. Furthermore there are plenty of food assistance programs available to anyone in the US should they need the help. This argument that we have people that "need" to hunt for food is an absurd and false justification to whitewash the fact that most of them do it for their amusement and no other purpose.

Re:Hunting for food is not needed in the US

[Spiked_Three]

totally unfair to moderate you as a troll. I disagree with your statement, but it was not trolling, just plain poor moderation.

I used to live in an area where, granted somewhat lazy white trailer trash, did indeed hunt for food because their welfare checks just wasn't enough to fund both their junk car buying habits and eat. yeah, sad I know, but they truly did have to hunt for food, or starve.

I too thought that places like these were long gone, until I accidently moved into one. I thought the low cost of living there was a good thing, only to realize the worst hillbilly stereotype was too kind to describe the place. It was a nightmare - the largest area of depression in the united states, and sizeable (East Tennessee).

Re:Video games are not real life

[CanHasDIY]

Do you understand the appeal of first person shooters?

There is a HUGE difference between doing something imaginary in a video game and killing a real, live creature or a real live person.

Yea, namely that one is a method of food acquisition that requires training, certification, and licensing, and the other is a way for little kids (or people with little kid mentalities) to play up fantasies about murdering other humans.

Here's a hint, in a video game no one actually dies and all the participants know that.

No one actually dies when hunting either. At least, you hope no one actually dies, but accidents do happen.

Trouble is, if a kid's only interaction with firearms is playing a fantasy game where "no one dies," if/when they encounter a real firearm they aren't going to understand just how dangerous of a tool it is. Kids who hunt know the difference.

It's one thing to fantasize about something and quite another to actually do it in the real world.

True. Now apply that to your own thought process: your fantasy about what hunting is, and how hunters are motivated, is one thing, and reality is another.

We're talking about people getting amusement from the real world suffering of another creature.

Proof that you don't know jack about hunting, other than what [insert preferred 'envronmentalist' group] told you to think. FWIW, most hunters try to avoid causing the animals to suffer.

That's why we invented target practice.

I hope you can actually understand why that is very very very different.

I do. I hope you can understand how unreasonably uninformed you are presenting yourself as.

Re:Bigfoot

[ArcadeMan]

Of course we won't, because he's naturally blurry.

Re:Needless legislation

[Overzeetop]

On the contrary, it biases the animals taken in a given year. If you are a hunter and have a week to take a large game specimen, you are likely to make a different decision about what is an "acceptable" take if you are limited to ground review vs being able to survey a much larger area and select a better trophy animal to hunt.

This seems to be aimed specifically at sport hunters since subsistence hunters would be less selective or would simply have more time, as local residents, if they felt some odd need to harvest a particular size animal.

Re:Whats the poing of hunting as a sport?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Because unlike your latest Call of Duty download, hunting doesn't consist of moving a mouse until the crosshairs are over the head. It's an entire process.

Well, glad the drones arent doing the shooting yet

[luckytroll]

At least folks are still getting out in the fresh air.

Seems like its only a matter of time before people can just sit in their living rooms and run an armed drone around the bush to shoot stuff for them.

It already happens a bit with the astronomy crowd - why stand shivering when you can remote your telescope from the comfort of home?

On the plus side, if you do happen to design a drone smart enough to hunt down a critter, you may have a future building dystopian tech for the defense industry.

Re:Red herring arguments

[Ranbot]

Actually, you might be surprised how much of the US population still hunts for food. Granted these are generally poor rural people and thus are poorly represented on the internet and media so they are somewhat invisible, but there is a significant number of them spread around the country and they hunt more frequently then the recreational crowd.

I don't think those poor rural hunters who supplement their food with game are using $1,000+ drones. $1,000 could buy a lot of other necessities, food or otherwise. I'm not saying your wrong and I wouldn't stop those people from hunting, but the argument doesn't apply to this situation.

I lived in Alaska for 5 years...

[AntiTuX]

From what I recall from the hunting laws, you had to have a 72-hour "cooling down" period after using a helicopter or aircraft to spot animals.

Honestly, we (my father and I) were more interested in terrain issues than we were the animals. You want to try to find the path of least resistance, and also making sure that we could actually cross specific rivers, and at what points they were broken open during the winter time. At some places the snow would be so deep that if you stepped wrong, you would be up to your neck almost instantly. That doesn't even count making sure that you weren't in a hunting route for a grizzly bear, which makes things even more difficult. Having something that is the size of a VW beetle running at you full-bore at around 40 MPH is not something I want to ever repeat. It was hard living. It was more a survival thing for us.

Every winter, there was a herd of about 400,000 caribou that would come within about 50 miles of town. Honestly, getting to the animals was the hard part. Getting one was as easy as taking a 200 yard shot with a high-powered rifle.

Keep in mind that where I lived, we were 500 miles away from any major city, and the only way in and out was by aircraft. We actually lived off of what we killed and made use of it. We weren't out there looking for the big racks. We were doing it for survival, and we also followed the rules.

Re:Hunting is not humane

[CanHasDIY]

Yea, namely that one is a method of food acquisition that requires training, certification, and licensing, and the other is a way for little kids (or people with little kid mentalities) to play up fantasies about murdering other humans.

"Food acquisition"? BULLSHIT. It's killing and terrorizing animals for fun. Nobody in the US needs to hunt to put food on the table. That argument is a load of crap.

Look, dink, just because you can easily go to the grocery store and buy your chosen food-that-had-a-mother "guilt free," because you didn't have to look it in it's sweet widdle face before it became your lunch doesn't make you better than the people who prefer the field-to-table process; IMO, it makes you worse, because you feel that this pawning off of the actual killing absolves you from being responsible for the death. Go watch a fucking PETA video of how stockyard animals live, then try and tell me that I'm torturing field-raised animals when I put a single round through their hearts.

Also - venison cannot be purchased at any grocer I've ever been to, and it's my favorite kind of meat, so... there's that.

No one actually dies when hunting either.

Exactly what do you call the dead animal that results from hunting?

Meat.

I sure as hell wouldn't try to affix human characteristics to goddamn livestock, I can tell you that - only a PETA terrorist or one of their supporters would do something so nonsensical.

Oh, because a human didn't die it doesn't matter? Wow, you are a pretty cruel individual. The medical term for people who lack empathy like that is psychopathy.

Oh, shit, you are a PETA terrorist, aren't you?

What's next, you gonna call me a monster because I had my pet dogs spayed and neutered? Go blow up a pig farm, terrorist.

Re:Hunting is not for the poor

[BitZtream]

Not within 72-48 hours of when you intend to go hunting in most every state in the US, including Alaska.

It is most certainly illegal to use planes for spotting in most places.

Re:Sarah Palin

[tsqr]

You seem to have Sarah Palin confused with Tina Fey. SP never said she could see Russia from her window, or her porch, or her back yard, or any other part of her property or of mainland Alaska. She said that Russia could be seen from an island that is part of Alaska, which is actually true.

Re:Hunting is not humane

[BitZtream]

"Food acquisition"? BULLSHIT. It's killing and terrorizing animals for fun. Nobody in the US needs to hunt to put food on the table. That argument is a load of crap.

I hate to inform you, and I'm tired of putting effort into fixing peoples ignorance today, but you really need to do some research, you could not possibly be more wrong. There are plenty of people in the nation for whom they can't buy food that was farm raised and slaughtered, and the government doesn't provide enough help for them to do anything other than hunt.

I've been there. I stood in line for the government cheese ... and then was fucked when it ran out before the line got to me.

You have no idea what being poor is actually like, contrary to your fantasy world, the government is this perfect protector that solves all your problems. You live in a nice secluded little part of the world that has your head so far up your ass, you don't even have any idea how some people live.

Outside of DC and a few states in the north east/new england ... I doubt there are very many states that don't have people who MUST HUNT TO EAT or die.

Go live in the swamps of LA, or the rural areas in Alaska, Georgia, Mississippi or Alabama.

You have no idea what poor is.

Laughable that some still say hunting is a sport

[JustNiz]

Hunters with high-velocity rifles/sniper scopes/drones/helicopters vs. an unarmed animal? When one side has such a massively asymmetric advantage it is ridiculous to label the activity as a sport. I laugh at those pathetic people. They should be embarrassed to even admit that they are mentally stunted enough to even want to do it.

Hunting will only be a sport when the hunted animal gains an equal ability to locate and kill its hunters, including taking out their vehicles and helicopters.

Until then, hunting is just a predetermined and terminal (therefore the worst) form of sadistic bullying and/or an unnecessarily inefficient form of food gathering. Apparently those that spend thousands on hunting then claim they do it just for food aren't capable of even basic economics or understanding that there's a good reason why hunter-gatherer societies got completely superseded by agrarianism.

Re:Choice, not necessity

[drinkypoo]

Out of choice, not out of necessity. I don't actually have a problem with someone hunting for a meal but the fact remains that hunting in this country is a choice, not an economic necessity. People don't live in those sorts of areas because they landed there by accident. They made a conscious choice to live in a location away from society.

"Those sorts of areas"? "away from society"? You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. My father was living in Corning when he was living on wild game. Hardly the fucking wilderness. If my neighbors hadn't claimed a public access road as their driveway, I could walk for 15 minutes and be inside of BLM land where it's legal to hunt deer, and this area is thick with them, and I live on a paved road and have electrical connections. You are just completely, staggeringly ignorant. Therefore, I am totally unsurprised to see you posting to slashdot. But it's still sad.

Hell, get a bunch of chickens and raise them.

You not only have to have a place (usually outside of city limits) for that, but you also have to be able to afford feed, which has gone up massively. You have to be eating to have scraps.

Hunting simply is NOT a necessity and hasn't been for a long time.

Because it's not a necessity for you, it's not a necessity for anyone. Well, now we know the quality of your thought process: low, and selfish.

Re:Red herring arguments

[Andy Dodd]

I grew up in central New Jersey.

Deer are a MAJOR pest there:
1) No natural predators. The closest thing to a "natural predator" they have any more are cars.
2) No firearms hunting. The area is so built up that I believe even bow hunting needed exceptions from the normal rules (regarding proximity to residences) be made. Doesn't help that residences are where most of the food supply (landscaping) is, so it's hard to find deer that aren't too close to a house to shoot.
3) People dropping rocks out of windows probably wouldn't be effective enough for population control. (Although the deer are so docile and adjusted to human presence that this, in theory, would be a possible method for hunting deer.)

Re:False distinctions

[Bill_the_Engineer]

If your goal is to go out and eat, then go get the food and don't worry about what kind of chances the animal has.

If you can afford to use a drone to aid in hunting then you can probably go to Walmart and pick up some groceries.