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My rifle’s scope has a custom elevation turret, which in seconds I can dial to the specific distance to the target. I get the distance from a laser rangefinder, connected via Bluetooth to a ballistic app on my phone to help me understand bullet dynamics at different ranges. With inputs for my bullet’s ballistic coefficient, plus wind, humidity, temperature and even barometric pressure, I can remove most of the guesswork from long-range shooting. When I miss it’s because I’m the weak link.
Our technology is getting so sophisticated that, by applying the right gear to the right situations, it’s a cinch to hit a deer-sized target at 500 yards with a scoped rifle. Or to place an arrow in an elk-sized target at 100 yards with a tricked-out compound. The question is: Should we? Perhaps there is a risk in applying prodigious technology to killing animals and to being more effective hunters. A related question: Shouldn’t we embrace technology that makes our kills quicker and more humane?
These are questions Idaho Fish and Game is asking this year through a citizens group that’s charged with considering and recommending limitations on hunting technology. Called the Hunting and Advanced Technology (HAT) Working Group, the volunteer council is broaching a big subject: How much technology is too much? Should limitations on technology be mandated or simply recommended? How are prohibitions on gear enforced in the field?
It’s an audacious task, trying to put the genie of technology back in the bottle, especially because hunters have, as a group, embraced technology since our Neanderthal relatives hardened their wooden spears in fire. The Idaho group is expected to spend the first half of this year refining its recommendations, which would have to be approved by the Fish and Game Commission and the state legislature before being adopted by the agency.
“I’d say nothing is off the table,” says Ellary Tucker Williams, legislative and community engagement coordinator for Idaho Fish and Game, who is administering the working group selected from a whopping 767 applicants. “They could decide to recommend no changes, or they could recommend significant changes. I would expect discussions to center on whether there should be limits to technology and the theoretical trade-off between higher harvest success rates and hunting opportunity.”
Though the working group is months away from any formal recommendations, the Internet is abuzz with theories about what the HAT members might decide. Contributors to one online forum suggested the group may intend to restrict smart scopes and other Bluetooth-connected optics, as well as instruments that measure environmental factors like wind speed.
“Is there a line that we need to be aware of where people will be willing to give up opportunity in exchange for advanced technology?” asks Tucker Williams. “Or is there a line where people are willing to not have the latest and greatest in technology because they want more opportunity? Those are the questions that this working group is going to be discussing.”
Idaho’s conversation provides a good opportunity to consider how technology actually works in most hunting situations. I think back on my own hunting experience. The evolution of affordable, reliable laser rangefinders probably did more to enhance my effectiveness as a hunter than any other category of gear. I’d also argue that it made me a more humane hunter, capable of quick kills, compared to when I guessed at yardage and sometimes made less-than-lethal hits with my rifle or bow.
Such tech-enabled capability, which has allowed me to take game at greater distances and in a wider range of conditions, has an impact on wildlife management. If all hunters filled their tags every year thanks to the help of technology, then wildlife managers would have little choice but to reduce the number of tags. Alternatively, they might shorten seasons or apply more restrictions, requiring hunters to shoot only bucks with at least 4 points. Maybe managers would make it illegal to shoot at game from more than 300 yards or some other arbitrary distance.
and-effect relationship between opportunity, measured by abundant tags and long seasons, and harvest success is a real consequence of technology in the field. The more lethal hunters are, because their gear lets them shoot farther and more accurately, the less opportunity they will have, because game managers will necessarily restrict hunter numbers when harvest rates get unsustainably high.
This is what Tucker Williams is talking about when she describes the imaginary line that hunters may be facing: Do state agencies start to restrict opportunity because tech-enabled hunters are more successful? Or do hunters regulate themselves, eschewing certain technologies, in order to have more opportunity in the field? Those are the ultimate questions that HAT members will be discussing.
It’s not a conversation limited to Idaho. Both Ohio and Indiana have dealt with the whitetail-management implications of allowing crossbows in archery seasons. Western states have debated the ethics of hunters using image-transmitting trail cameras during hunting seasons. Most states are currently wrestling with permitting thermal optics in the field during hunting seasons.
Consider the steep trajectory of technology. It’s easy to imagine that in the next decade we might have firearm-mounted drones that could kill deer for us. Or maybe we have AI-enabled trail cameras that tell us exactly where to stand on which day in order to kill a certain buck. Or perhaps “smart bullets,” projectiles that can adjust their flight to hit the vitals every time, are in our future. Don’t laugh. At the rate of our current hunting technology, that’s not such a far-fetched idea.
But there’s a social cost to our pursuit of technology. The more we replace field skills with technology, the less traction hunters have with the general public, which normally supports hunting when fair-chase ethics are applied, when hunters hunt primarily for food and when the public feels hunters aren’t inappropriately taking advantage of wild animals.
Ultimately, efforts to ban certain types of technology from the field may be ineffectual. A more sustainable approach could be self-regulation. If hunters truly recognize the downsides of technology—that they may not be able to hunt every year if they employ the latest and greatest deer-killing tech—then we might as a community decide to limit ourselves.
We’ve already done that in many of our primitive-weapons seasons. My home state of Montana is a good example. While there are dozens of manufacturers making accurate and field-worthy break-action muzzleloaders that accept 209 primers, pelletized blackpowder and saboted bullets, Montana expanded its deer and elk season a few years ago by creating its “heritage hunting season.” The state restricts muzzleloaders to those that use plain lead projectiles, loose blackpowder, and either percussion or flintlock ignition systems.
The season has been wildly popular, with hunters dusting off their fathers’ Hawken rifles and embracing the difficulties of getting close to animals. Maybe that’s what Idaho’s HAT group will ultimately recommend: We hunters don’t have to use the latest and greatest whiz-bang technology to find success. Rather, a good day afield can include any number of weapons that are fully capable of killing a deer or a turkey or an elk as long as the hunter can close the distance—no matter what that distance may be.
Bob Robb
Josh Honeycutt
Game & Fish Staff
Jim Gronaw
Frank Sargeant
Drew Warden
Jace Bauserman
Game & Fish Staff
Jeff Knapp
John Felsher
Game & Fish Staff
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