etw,
This is a portion of a news story about this issue. I copied it from another thread on this forum.
GRANTS PASS, Oregon (AP) -- Ever since man picked up a rock to kill dinner, hunters have been technology pioneers. These days, they've got more gadgets than ever to choose from.
Heat sensors will spot wounded game in dense brush, remote-controlled cameras can scout game trails. There are motorized duck and deer decoys, electronic duck and coyote calls and even holographic archery sights.
But some of the latest in hunting tech pushes the ethical envelope, and some states are outlawing high-tech innovations that game managers feel give hunters an undue advantage.
A San Antonio entrepreneur recently created an uproar with a Web site,
www.live-shot.com , that aims to allow hunters to shoot exotic game animals or feral pigs on his private hunting ranch by remote control, with the click of a mouse, from anywhere in the world.
"The idea of sitting at a computer screen playing a video game and activating a remote controlled firearm to shoot an animal is not hunting," said Kirby Brown, executive director of the Texas Wildlife Association, a hunters' group. "It's off the ethical charts."
The Texas game commission appears to agree, and is moving to outlaw remote-control hunting for native game animals. But it will take an act of the legislature to stop it with exotic game animals on private property, and at least one lawmaker says that is just what he will do.
Live-Shot owner John Lockwood figured his idea was not much of a stretch from the predominant Texas practice of shooting from a tree stand at deer drawn to mechanical feeders and would allow disabled hunters and servicemen overseas to continue to enjoy the sport.
Under his plan, the hunter would aim and fire a .30-06 rifle by remote control from a computer terminal, with a video camera allowing him to sight in on his prey. An attendant in the blind with the rifle could override any unsafe or unethical shots.
"It's just like it was if you paid for a guided hunt on my ranch, or any one of a thousand of them here in Texas," said Lockwood. "Ever since we stopped running after our prey and killing it with our hands we have evolved into distancing ourselves farther and farther from the game and making it more and more efficient, for whatever reason we want to take it."