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They talked about how they caught the guy spotlighting a live deer at night. I can see it from both sides. On the one hand, you want to allow hunters to recover

They talked about how they caught the guy spotlighting a live deer at night. I can see it from both sides. On the one hand, you want to allow hunters to recover animals they've killed, otherwise it's all a waste. On the other hand, some people will use drones for poaching, or to get an unfair advantage. There are artificial restrictions built into hunting, that is not new. The question is how to write regulations to get the good effects and not the bad effects, which is incredibly difficult. I agree that it seems unfair to charge this guy when he was not trying to poach, he was just trying to help recover the animal, and using a flashlight on the drone to do it. That's really not the guy you should make an example of.

bee_rider 3y ago
I think there’s a missing element on the pro side—putting aside whether or not it is a waste for the hunter, it is wildly unethical to injure an animal and then leave wandering around slowly dying. If we’re going to have hunting, we should be extremely reluctant to limit the ability to find the injured animals.
- godelski 3y ago
  This is the bigger aspect to me. "All for nothing" is not the right description for failure to recover. Hunting is actually an important part of maintaining a proper ecosystem. It still serves as a management tool even if the animal dies in needless pain. Counterintuitively, hunting can often be an ethically right decision to make (depending on animal). This is because we humans have displaced natural predators and these prey will tend to over populate, over consume their food sources, and then starve. Remember that hunting is limited to seasons and that these seasons are decided per species and the population of that species. There are a lot of regulations around this and it isn't simply kill anything you want. Similarly there are even moral big game hunting, where they specifically target aggressive and harmful animals, and use the money to fund the nature preserve. In this manner, the ethical obligation is then to do the least harm and make the most out of it. If we need to cull some populations, it should be done as humanely as possible. Applying the same ethical ideals (distinct from practice) that we apply for livestock. Some articles if anyone wants to read more. This is a controversial topic still but I'm providing this information because there is legitimacy to this side of the argument that many may not be aware of. I'd encourage discussion, but not bashing. Unfortunately, like most things, there's a lot of complexity and nuance to all these things. The claim is not that there is no abuse, but that there is a difference between abusing a practice and a practice being useful. https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/deerhuntastool.aspx https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/deerhuntas... https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-... https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/539071-misinformation-about-trophy-hunting-is-wrong-dead-wrong/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/539071-misinfor... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7YFjisSTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7YFjisSTg
- hk1337 3y ago
  > it is wildly unethical to injure an animal and then leave wandering around slowly dying. It's only unethical if you do it on purpose and do not make an honest effort to find the animal. It can happen that you shoot an animal and cannot find it because it ran off.
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    Your intentions behind the injury, and the effort you put into the search, are irrelevant to the amount of suffering experienced by the animal if it is not found. Perhaps one person's behavior is more ethical with regard to the decisions they made, but their effect on the world is not different. Thus, we should make it easier for people to use tools to find such injured animals, so their effect on the world will be more positive (or less negative) than otherwise.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > ...do not make an honest effort to find the animal... And here we're talking about the law forcing unethical behavior by limiting honest efforts to find the animal.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > the law forcing unethical behavior by limiting honest efforts to find the animal Fair enough. On one hand, you have the harm caused by animals I found. On the other hand, you have the blanket plausible deniability granted to anyone using drones to find targets. Perhaps there could be a rule about not discharging a firearm while a drone is in flight. I don’t see how that would be enforceable, however, inasmuch as it requires LE to witness the illegal kill, which almost never happens.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        > On the other hand, you have the blanket plausible deniability granted to anyone using drones to find targets. Yah, I appreciate the problems; perhaps you can't have a weapon on your person while doing certain permitted recovery things. In this case, it's some poor SOB who got a phone call from some hunters^H^H^H^H^H^H agents who wanted help finding a hurt animal.
- op00to 3y ago
  It was unethical to hunt prior to the cheap availability of drones? How about not killing the animal unless you’re sure you can recover it.
julianeon 3y ago
What is the "unfair advantage?" Seems legitimate to me (or no less legitimate than whatever the 'fair' method is).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  Hunting is a sport and there is some element of sportsmanship reflected by the laws. Although with spotlighting in particular I am pretty sure it's because the man doesnt want you shooting guns in the dark. When you light it up you ruin your own night vision and cannot see your backstop.
  - vanattab 3y ago
    I don't think this is the primary reason all though it may be part of it. You are often allowed to hunt/shoot animals at night such as preditors or nocturnal animales like coyotes, skunks, racoons etc..
- karaterobot 3y ago
  Using the drones to track deer seems unfair. Take an extreme example: imagine using several drones with thermal imaging cameras to follow in real time the location of every deer in an area. The hunter then uses their phone to select the largest and best of them to take. The drones sweep in and frighten the target deer in the direction of the hunter, who is waiting beside their truck on a nearby access road. People say "just having a rifle makes it unfair to the deer," but I think even if you believe that, using drones seems unsporting to the deer, and unfair to other hunters who don't have access to the same resources.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    I don't think the dear is interested in the sport, either way.
friendzis 3y ago
> On the one hand, you want to allow hunters to recover animals they've killed, otherwise it's all a waste. I don't think that's a good take. Yes, you don't want to _obstruct_ ability to take hunted animals, however this kind of tosses away one the core rules of weapon handling - shoot to kill (the others being shoot only if you are certain you want to kill the target and shoot only if you are certain you can kill). Having to search for animal is indicative that animal was wounded mortally, which is... dangerous and unsafe practice.
- effingwewt 3y ago
  This sounds like you've never been hunting. Animals move, sometimes right as you pull the trigger. Wounding doesn't mean you mortally wounded it either, sometimes it takes several shots no matter how good a marksman you are. No hunter wants a wounded animal as it will fill the meat with fight or flight hormones such as adrenaline. I don't know why you think its any more dangerous, no hunters save maybe bows are right up next to it. Some hunters will track for hours upon hours only to lose the prey, and this would help alleviate that. I think nixxing drones completely is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
  - doublerabbit 3y ago
    How was hunting ever been without drones? If the animal is hunted, wounded than another animal will take it's place in hunting the animal. You loose your hunt, tough luck. Drones are a cheat.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - samatman 3y ago
      Who is getting cheated here?
      - doublerabbit 3y ago
        The animals, who else? With the technologies nowadays, they have no cover. No protection, no surroundings to protect themselves; no privacy. Here in the UK they are using drones to hunt foxes. The drone watches the fox run and then ride with the hounds to the exact point where to hunt, flushing the fox out of the ground. With no chance of escape; drones are not fair-game. The only act of protection are outdated rules which are criminality exploited and illegally broken or underfunded to be able to protect. Ironic how we are against drones on humans yet when it comes to animals, oh it's just fine. How long until animal hunting is done by drone? With AI being able to track their movements, predict, monitor movement all from the air, how the hell do they have any chance of from not being hunted? You tell me, how is that fair? You can't. I understand hunting, and to some; sure, it's not for fun. I can understand that. I'll be pissed but can turn an eye if your genuine about it. But when it becomes a disadvantage, your a shite of a person. Don't give me an "would you rather a limping deer who is bleeding to death" -- Don't shoot it in the first place if you know you can't kill it. Considering HN is American, enjoy slaughtering of animals from hunting to eating veal. Using drones on animal takes all protection away from the animal. It's not like your local Canadian moose has an Anti-AI vest or a tiger with an RPG or a fox with a nuke.
why_at 3y ago
I've never hunted before in my life and I only just learned about "Spotlighting" in hunting, so I'm a little confused. I get that using a light makes it easier to hunt deer and other animals since they will stay still as you shine it on them, what I don't get is why this should be illegal. Can any hunters explain it? So far one reason I've seen is that it can disturb wildlife to shine bright lights all over the place which I understand, but it's not illegal to walk around in the woods with a flashlight in other circumstances so this seems odd. The other reason I've seen is that it's too easy or "unsporting" to hunt deer in this way. I don't really understand this since you already need a permit/tag/whatever to hunt in the first place, so it's not like you'll get too many deer. If someone wants to hunt this way, why not let them?
- rcurry 3y ago
  I’m a predator hunter and do most of my hunting at night. The reason they don’t want you using lights is that deer are mostly crepuscular creatures and so jacklighting them gives you a huge advantage. I see trophy bucks at night every time I’m out after coyotes - the same animals would be really hard to sneak up on during daylight hours, when their senses are more highly attenuated to avoiding threats.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I’m not against hunting - I think it’s hypocritical for anyone who eats meat to tsk tsk at hunting. But doesn’t a hunter with a gun already give you an unfair advantage over a deer?
    - samatman 3y ago
      The unfair advantage is over other hunters. Hunters would prefer to hunt by daylight, for the most part. If light-hunting at night were allowed, that would be the only way to take the best game, because as the comment you're responding to notes, it's much easier. So everyone would be forced to do the thing they don't want to do, if they want to take a deer at all. That's a bad equilibrium, what we call "not sporting".
op00to 3y ago
If this dude is running a business, he should act professionally and not break the law even a little bit.
- mistercheph 3y ago
  Or at the very least, have the professionally dignity to gather up enough cash and resources to control the law and have sway in its enforcement

bee_rider 3y ago

I think there’s a missing element on the pro side—putting aside whether or not it is a waste for the hunter, it is wildly unethical to injure an animal and then leave wandering around slowly dying. If we’re going to have hunting, we should be extremely reluctant to limit the ability to find the injured animals.

godelski 3y ago
This is the bigger aspect to me. "All for nothing" is not the right description for failure to recover. Hunting is actually an important part of maintaining a proper ecosystem. It still serves as a management tool even if the animal dies in needless pain. Counterintuitively, hunting can often be an ethically right decision to make (depending on animal). This is because we humans have displaced natural predators and these prey will tend to over populate, over consume their food sources, and then starve. Remember that hunting is limited to seasons and that these seasons are decided per species and the population of that species. There are a lot of regulations around this and it isn't simply kill anything you want. Similarly there are even moral big game hunting, where they specifically target aggressive and harmful animals, and use the money to fund the nature preserve. In this manner, the ethical obligation is then to do the least harm and make the most out of it. If we need to cull some populations, it should be done as humanely as possible. Applying the same ethical ideals (distinct from practice) that we apply for livestock. Some articles if anyone wants to read more. This is a controversial topic still but I'm providing this information because there is legitimacy to this side of the argument that many may not be aware of. I'd encourage discussion, but not bashing. Unfortunately, like most things, there's a lot of complexity and nuance to all these things. The claim is not that there is no abuse, but that there is a difference between abusing a practice and a practice being useful. https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/deerhuntastool.aspx https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/deerhuntas... https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-... https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/539071-misinformation-about-trophy-hunting-is-wrong-dead-wrong/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/539071-misinfor... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7YFjisSTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7YFjisSTg
hk1337 3y ago
> it is wildly unethical to injure an animal and then leave wandering around slowly dying. It's only unethical if you do it on purpose and do not make an honest effort to find the animal. It can happen that you shoot an animal and cannot find it because it ran off.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  Your intentions behind the injury, and the effort you put into the search, are irrelevant to the amount of suffering experienced by the animal if it is not found. Perhaps one person's behavior is more ethical with regard to the decisions they made, but their effect on the world is not different. Thus, we should make it easier for people to use tools to find such injured animals, so their effect on the world will be more positive (or less negative) than otherwise.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > ...do not make an honest effort to find the animal... And here we're talking about the law forcing unethical behavior by limiting honest efforts to find the animal.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > the law forcing unethical behavior by limiting honest efforts to find the animal Fair enough. On one hand, you have the harm caused by animals I found. On the other hand, you have the blanket plausible deniability granted to anyone using drones to find targets. Perhaps there could be a rule about not discharging a firearm while a drone is in flight. I don’t see how that would be enforceable, however, inasmuch as it requires LE to witness the illegal kill, which almost never happens.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      > On the other hand, you have the blanket plausible deniability granted to anyone using drones to find targets. Yah, I appreciate the problems; perhaps you can't have a weapon on your person while doing certain permitted recovery things. In this case, it's some poor SOB who got a phone call from some hunters^H^H^H^H^H^H agents who wanted help finding a hurt animal.
op00to 3y ago
It was unethical to hunt prior to the cheap availability of drones? How about not killing the animal unless you’re sure you can recover it.

julianeon 3y ago

What is the "unfair advantage?" Seems legitimate to me (or no less legitimate than whatever the 'fair' method is).

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jabroni_salad 3y ago
Hunting is a sport and there is some element of sportsmanship reflected by the laws. Although with spotlighting in particular I am pretty sure it's because the man doesnt want you shooting guns in the dark. When you light it up you ruin your own night vision and cannot see your backstop.
- vanattab 3y ago
  I don't think this is the primary reason all though it may be part of it. You are often allowed to hunt/shoot animals at night such as preditors or nocturnal animales like coyotes, skunks, racoons etc..
karaterobot 3y ago
Using the drones to track deer seems unfair. Take an extreme example: imagine using several drones with thermal imaging cameras to follow in real time the location of every deer in an area. The hunter then uses their phone to select the largest and best of them to take. The drones sweep in and frighten the target deer in the direction of the hunter, who is waiting beside their truck on a nearby access road. People say "just having a rifle makes it unfair to the deer," but I think even if you believe that, using drones seems unsporting to the deer, and unfair to other hunters who don't have access to the same resources.
- konschubert 3y ago
  I don't think the dear is interested in the sport, either way.

friendzis 3y ago

> On the one hand, you want to allow hunters to recover animals they've killed, otherwise it's all a waste. I don't think that's a good take. Yes, you don't want to _obstruct_ ability to take hunted animals, however this kind of tosses away one the core rules of weapon handling - shoot to kill (the others being shoot only if you are certain you want to kill the target and shoot only if you are certain you can kill). Having to search for animal is indicative that animal was wounded mortally, which is... dangerous and unsafe practice.

effingwewt 3y ago
This sounds like you've never been hunting. Animals move, sometimes right as you pull the trigger. Wounding doesn't mean you mortally wounded it either, sometimes it takes several shots no matter how good a marksman you are. No hunter wants a wounded animal as it will fill the meat with fight or flight hormones such as adrenaline. I don't know why you think its any more dangerous, no hunters save maybe bows are right up next to it. Some hunters will track for hours upon hours only to lose the prey, and this would help alleviate that. I think nixxing drones completely is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  How was hunting ever been without drones? If the animal is hunted, wounded than another animal will take it's place in hunting the animal. You loose your hunt, tough luck. Drones are a cheat.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - samatman 3y ago
    Who is getting cheated here?
    - doublerabbit 3y ago
      The animals, who else? With the technologies nowadays, they have no cover. No protection, no surroundings to protect themselves; no privacy. Here in the UK they are using drones to hunt foxes. The drone watches the fox run and then ride with the hounds to the exact point where to hunt, flushing the fox out of the ground. With no chance of escape; drones are not fair-game. The only act of protection are outdated rules which are criminality exploited and illegally broken or underfunded to be able to protect. Ironic how we are against drones on humans yet when it comes to animals, oh it's just fine. How long until animal hunting is done by drone? With AI being able to track their movements, predict, monitor movement all from the air, how the hell do they have any chance of from not being hunted? You tell me, how is that fair? You can't. I understand hunting, and to some; sure, it's not for fun. I can understand that. I'll be pissed but can turn an eye if your genuine about it. But when it becomes a disadvantage, your a shite of a person. Don't give me an "would you rather a limping deer who is bleeding to death" -- Don't shoot it in the first place if you know you can't kill it. Considering HN is American, enjoy slaughtering of animals from hunting to eating veal. Using drones on animal takes all protection away from the animal. It's not like your local Canadian moose has an Anti-AI vest or a tiger with an RPG or a fox with a nuke.

why_at 3y ago

I've never hunted before in my life and I only just learned about "Spotlighting" in hunting, so I'm a little confused. I get that using a light makes it easier to hunt deer and other animals since they will stay still as you shine it on them, what I don't get is why this should be illegal. Can any hunters explain it? So far one reason I've seen is that it can disturb wildlife to shine bright lights all over the place which I understand, but it's not illegal to walk around in the woods with a flashlight in other circumstances so this seems odd. The other reason I've seen is that it's too easy or "unsporting" to hunt deer in this way. I don't really understand this since you already need a permit/tag/whatever to hunt in the first place, so it's not like you'll get too many deer. If someone wants to hunt this way, why not let them?

rcurry 3y ago
I’m a predator hunter and do most of my hunting at night. The reason they don’t want you using lights is that deer are mostly crepuscular creatures and so jacklighting them gives you a huge advantage. I see trophy bucks at night every time I’m out after coyotes - the same animals would be really hard to sneak up on during daylight hours, when their senses are more highly attenuated to avoiding threats.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I’m not against hunting - I think it’s hypocritical for anyone who eats meat to tsk tsk at hunting. But doesn’t a hunter with a gun already give you an unfair advantage over a deer?
  - samatman 3y ago
    The unfair advantage is over other hunters. Hunters would prefer to hunt by daylight, for the most part. If light-hunting at night were allowed, that would be the only way to take the best game, because as the comment you're responding to notes, it's much easier. So everyone would be forced to do the thing they don't want to do, if they want to take a deer at all. That's a bad equilibrium, what we call "not sporting".

op00to 3y ago

If this dude is running a business, he should act professionally and not break the law even a little bit.

mistercheph 3y ago
Or at the very least, have the professionally dignity to gather up enough cash and resources to control the law and have sway in its enforcement