Space-Age Technology, Stone-Age Pursuit: Hunting Technology and the War Against Wildlife

by David Stalling

I once spent fourteen numbing days on a mountain in northern Norway, wearing Gore-Tex over wool to fend off the wind and sixty-below cold, covered in white camouflage to hide from the British troops below — the “enemy” in a giant NATO war game intended to warn Russia there would be hell to pay if they dared cross the nearby border in an attempt to gain control of the North Sea.

The Cold War at its coldest.

I was a Marine sergeant in a Force Recon unit, traveling to every clime and place to detect and report enemy movements and activities. We had state-of-the-art technology to help us get the job done: PVS-5 night-vision goggles, satellite communications gear, remote sensors to detect movement around our perimeter, Global Positioning Systems to determine precise locations, and high-powered variable scopes mounted on our M40 7.62 mm sniper rifles.

Swift. Silent. Deadly.

We used our skills and technology against the Gaddafis of the world.

In Norway, I joked with my buddy from Mississippi, “What if we could use this stuff for hunting?”

I was kidding.

Yet today you can find that technology — and much more — in glossy outdoor catalogs, hunting equipment stores such as Cabela’s, Scheels and Sportsman’s Warehouse, and advertisements in hunting magazines.

Let Cold War technology help you find and kill game.

A look through almost any hunting equipment catalog reveals a plethora of tools available to the modern hunter: trail cameras that photograph and record animal movements; game scanners; hearing enhancers; night-vision goggles; thermal and infrared scopes; rangefinders; variable-power riflescopes; latex calls; animal scents; how-to books and videos; state-by-state hunting statistics; ATVs with gun mounts; drones; GPS-based mapping systems — thousands of gadgets designed to increase a hunter’s chance of finding and killing wildlife.

Technology has saturated the world of hunting. Opening day — D-Day — the assault begins.

At least hunters aren’t calling in air strikes on elk, although they probably would if they could.

Several years ago, hunters in northern Idaho were shooting elk from half a mile away using .50-caliber rifles mounted on off-road vehicles. A game warden from Wyoming once told me that each year more hunters use airplanes to locate elk and radio their sightings to friends on the ground.

A few years ago, I read an anti-hunting brochure printed by the Humane Society of the United States that referred to hunting as the “war on wildlife.” At the time, I felt defensive. But they might have been onto something.

Consider one advertisement for a multispectral scope with a laser rangefinder and ballistic calculator. It calls the optic a “game-changer in the world of thermal and night vision,” offering “a powerful combination of cutting-edge technology for superior performance both day and night.”

“Whether you’re tracking wildlife, engaging in tactical operations, or simply need reliable visibility in low-light conditions, this multispectral scope has you covered.”

The ad continues: “Its dual functionality allows users to switch seamlessly between thermal imaging and digital night vision, providing enhanced situational awareness in any lighting condition. One of its standout features is Picture-in-Picture mode, which lets you view both thermal and digital images at the same time. This capability is perfect for hunters or tactical operators who need to maintain full awareness of their surroundings while zeroing in on specific targets.”

Another thermal optic advertisement declares: “The true essence of hunting lies in the pursuit, and thermal imaging amplifies that experience. Picture this: you’re deep in the woods, the sun has set, and traditional visibility is limited. Yet through the lens of a thermal camera, the forest comes alive with heat signatures. Tracking becomes a real-time, heart-pounding adventure, increasing your chances of a successful hunt.”

Hunters often claim that nonhunters are “detached” from the natural world, while hunters retain a special relationship with the Earth. Yet last year I saw a group heading into the mountains of Montana in a massive motorhome with a satellite dish on top and two trailers in tow — one for ATVs, the other carrying a large freezer for game meat. A week later, I encountered hunters deep in the backcountry using portable radios to alert one another to the location of elk.

Back to nature?

In many parts of the United States, hunters deploy automatic bait dispensers with timers. Deer bait — corn and grains — can be programmed to dispense just as shooting light arrives. Hunters often wait in elaborate, elevated stands equipped with heaters, recliners, refrigerators, bars, even televisions.

Technology can be self-defeating for hunters. When killing wildlife becomes easier and animals more vulnerable, agencies respond with additional restrictions.

In the late 1970s, elk herds in parts of Idaho crashed after too many hunters with high-powered rifles and scopes took advantage of virtually unlimited opportunity. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game responded by instituting bulls-only hunting.

Then came modern elk calls. Hunters became adept at imitating the whistles, grunts, and squeals of bulls in rut. Entrepreneurs marketed calls. Writers promoted them. How-to videos flourished. In units where peak rut coincided with early rifle seasons, bull numbers dropped drastically. Bull-to-cow ratios declined. Some herds lacked mature bulls altogether.

The absence of mature bulls can disrupt breeding seasons, conception dates, and calf survival. Younger bulls tend to breed later and over a longer period in the fall than mature bulls. As a result, calving seasons stretch out, and many calves are born late in spring. Late-born calves miss the lush forage of early spring and have less time to build fat reserves before winter, often entering the cold months in poorer condition. Prolonged calving seasons also make newborn elk more vulnerable to predators such as bears, mountain lions, coyotes, and wolves.

When mature bulls dominate breeding, calves are born within a tighter window. Biologists call this a “flooding strategy” — overwhelming predators with a concentrated pulse of vulnerable young, increasing survival rates.

Mature bulls also help maintain social order within a herd. Their presence reduces strife, exhaustion, and wounding among younger bulls and spares cows from relentless harassment. Energy saved in autumn can mean survival in winter.

Despite hunters’ frequent insistence that wildlife management is science-based, many hunters — particularly in the West — blame wolves and other predators for a lack of mature bulls in elk herds and low calf survival.

When wildlife agencies implement additional restrictions or close roads to reduce the heightened vulnerability caused in large part by technology, some hunters lash out, claiming their rights are being violated.

Several years ago in the Clearwater region of Idaho, hunters complained that black bears were killing and eating too many elk calves. They urged the state to allow them to kill more bears. A study by the Idaho Department of Fish & Game concluded that elk calves had become more susceptible to predation because of low bull-to-cow ratios and a lack of mature bulls in the herd — resulting from too many hunters with increasingly high-tech gear with too easy access, making hunted elk more vulnerable to hunters. They recommended more restrictions on elk hunting.

But hunters wouldn’t have it. They tend to only believe in science when research results match their preconceived notions. They insisted it was the black bears, science be damned. And since hunters and the hunting media and the hunting industry have most of the control and influence over state wildlife agencies, they let the hunters kill more black bears.

Hunting is big business. The industry wields considerable influence.

If you are a hunter who criticizes certain practices — and I know this from experience — you may be attacked with McCarthy-like vengeance. You become one of “them.” The enemy. The dreaded “anti-hunter.”

If you work in hunting media and question technology, advertising revenue may disappear. If you represent a conservation organization and raise concerns, sponsorship and funding may evaporate. If you are a state wildlife agency or university program that questions technological escalation, donations and political support may wane.

As Aldo Leopold wrote in A Sand County Almanac (1949):

“I have the impression that the American sportsman is puzzled; he doesn’t understand what is happening to him. He is told that better gadgets are good for industry, so why not for outdoor recreation? It has not dawned on him that outdoor recreations are essentially primitive and atavistic; that their value is a contrast value; that excessive mechanization destroys that contrast by moving the factory to the woods or the marsh. The sportsman has no leaders to tell him what is wrong. The sporting press no longer represents sport; it has turned billboard for the gadgeteer. Wildlife administrators are too busy producing something to shoot to worry about the cultural value of the shooting.”

If you happen to be someone walking through a hunting equipment store, browsing a hunting catalog or looking at advertisements in a hunting magazine, you might reasonably conclude — as the Humane Society did — that there is, indeed, a war underway against wildlife.