It’s easy to complain about “technology” in hunting, but when you get right down to it, the entirety of human history is really just one long steady march of technological progress. Our ancestors started by running animals down and chasing them off cliffs or beating them with clubs, before they developed spears and atlatls and bows and crossbows and firearms, which continue to evolve into more accurate, advanced versions. But even hunting in modern times—say the last 100 years or so since the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation really took hold—has undergone a number of technological advances that have, without exaggeration, changed the game, outside of the weapons themselves.
Even in the past 25 years that I’ve been hunting as an adult, the game has changed. Heck, we didn’t even take our cell phones into the woods with us back then if we had one at all. Today we wouldn’t dream of sitting in a treestand without one, because not only is it our primary form of communication, but it also holds our ballistic data, our maps and GPS, and as long as we have a cell signal, a YouTube video that will teach us literally any skill we might need on the spot. Yes, we’re probably safer for having phones on us at all times. And we might even be better hunters, too: Ballistic apps help us make more accurate shots, and an app like onX can help keep us on the property we’re supposed to be on without trespassing across boundaries.
How about trail cameras? I’m certain that when trail cameras (using film) were first introduced back in the day, someone was whining about how unfair it was to take pictures of deer when you weren’t even in the woods. And how far we’ve come since then: Today’s cellular trail cameras can send a photo directly to your phone immediately after snapping it. That buck might still be in the field when you receive a picture of him, hop up from the couch and head into the woods to see if you can intercept him. Is that—and here’s a big word—fair?
Some state legislatures don’t think so, and a few have gone so far as to ban all trail cameras, cellular or not, for any hunting purposes. But cellular trail cameras can actually be really good for the woods and the wildlife, too, because they allow you to monitor what’s going on without having to traipse through the woods and disturb the deer twice a week just to switch out SD cards or batteries. Less disturbance is better for wildlife, surely.
Thermal is another area that’s growing faster than our ability to really get our heads around its ethical use. Is it still “fair chase” if you can see an animal hiding in the brush using a high-tech thermal device? Maybe, maybe not—so some states don’t allow you to use thermal imaging for big game at all, restricting its use to hunting predators (hogs and coyotes) at night. This might seem like a fair compromise at first blush, but consider the consequences and the fact that thermal is a fantastic game recovery tool. If you shoot a deer and lose the blood trail, thermal can be enormously helpful in helping you find that deer in a pile of brush or after dark—and recovering downed or wounded game is always a good thing. The technology is a double-edged sword, and regulating it should involve nuanced conversations, not blanket bans.
And then there’s the drone question, which is at least one area where most of us agree. Most states prohibit the use of drones for scouting, locating or pursuing game, or just for aiding in a hunt in any way. But again, where legal, drones can be used for a universally agreed-upon good thing: finding otherwise unfindable downed or wounded game. Are you getting the point that all this technology comes with an upside that serves as a counterpoint to its downside?
The truth is, technology is advancing faster than we can really grapple with, and we haven’t had time to weigh the ethics of some of these things that are making hunters more effective every year. While the law catches up, each of us must make decisions for ourselves. Personally, I embrace most of these technological advances when used with a common-sense approach. I’m not going to be that girl who jumps off the couch and hits the woods when I get a photo texted to me from my cellular trail cam, but will I use them to help me scout and keep track of game without having to step foot in the woods every few days? Absolutely. And I’ll definitely use thermal on a hog hunt, which is really more like by-any-means-necessary environmental management than a fair-chase hunt—but I won’t be using it to the same extent for deer or other big game anytime soon, regardless of what my state allows.
The bottom line is that, just like we say, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” we can also say that technology can’t ruin hunting; people can ruin hunting. We all make choices about what to do with the tools at our disposal, and whether it’s the Neanderthal’s throwing spear or our cell phone apps, all technology is simply that: a tool.
