Internet Hunting

Internet Hunting? You have got to be kidding. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Though looks like some states are making it illegal.

A Texas man's plan to let people hunt through the internet, shooting live animals on his ranch with an on-site rifle controlled by their home computers, didn't get very far in his home state. By the time Texas lawmakers banned the practice last year, just one of two customers had bagged game electronically.

Now New Hampshire officials are trying to stop the practice from taking off here before it even starts.

Yeah, someone already had a site up to do the hunting.

Some critics say the technology numbs people to the idea of killing, the same way video games in which the player shoots other people could. Nowe says internet hunting goes against the principles of the sport and puts animals at an unfair disadvantage. He worries that, as the state population grows and open space shrinks, internet hunting would be seen as an alternative to the real thing.

Well, that's rubbish. The desenitizing argument is pretty much BS as far as I'm concerned. If it's fantasy, it's not real. This is real, something actually does die in this. A certain amount of respect and involvement should be required. It's not a sodding video game. What next?, let people drive a Porsche around LA via their computer?

Lockwood said he has been criticized for creating a game that lets the rich hunter shoot from his office or the lazy one play from his couch. He said instead, he wanted to create something to bring hunting to people who can't get out in the woods - people with disabilities, those who live in places where it's not possible to hunt or soldiers deployed overseas.

"The people having a reaction to it don't know the truth," he said. "They've read so much sensationalized stuff and have some preconceived notions."

Lockwood said opinions vary on what a hunt should be. But to those who are pushing for the ban in New Hampshire, internet hunting is unethical. They say the practice violates the principle of "fair chase" that dictates hunting as a sport.

Ok, this guy pegs the loser scale. Hunting is a physical sport and requires skills. It also requires an understanding of the consequences of the hunt. Bambi will die. Bambi will bleed, a lot. Bambi will need to be dressed and hauled out of the woods. I do feel badly about the disabled who can't experience the hunt. But you know, life isn't fair. Get used to it.

As for the Soldiers overseas, I'm going to seriously doubt that they have much desire to hunt over the internet, when they have the abilities to do it for real.

"It's my perception that fair chase is accomplished when an animal has a fair chance of escaping the hunter," said Steve Weber, chief of Fish and Game's wildlife division. "It's a matching of wits, if you will, between the hunter and the animal. It's the skill of the hunter which allows the hunter to be successful, rather than limits being put on the animal's ability to escape."

Weber said the animals don't have a fair chance when enclosed in a park and when the hunter has access to advanced technology. He said the state wildlife division opposes big game parks altogether. He said both the parks and the concept of internet hunting tarnishes the image of hunting and diminishes the respect that the non-hunting population has for the sport. For the same reasons, Weber opposes another bill in the House that would allow people to go to elk and red deer farms to shoot the corralled animals. Those animals can only be killed in approved slaughterhouses.

I'll agree with Weber to a point. By Lockwood's logic, he may as well set up the virtual abattoir so that the web user can cut the throat of the animal. There is no skill used here at all. But as for advanced technology, Weber forgets that is how humans got to be the dominant species. The rifle, the bow, even the pointy stick were advanced technologies that allowed man to hunt and survive.