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Comment by rolph | Hacker News Reader

“The state of Ohio permits the use of drones in the recovery of downed game. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Game Commission appears to be taking a hostile view of the use of drones in game recovery,” Coleman wrote in a Jan. 2 memorandum seeking co-sponsors for his bill. “Pennsylvanians deserve better. With the advent of drones, hunters have an additional tool to use and reduce the amount of dead game that goes uncollected.”

Coleman also told the Philadelphia Inquirer last month that he thinks using drones to recover deer is “common sense” and that the state shouldn’t overthink regulations around the technology.

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I'm a strong disagree on multiple fronts:

1) This will be used to let deer with small racks die

This won't be used to collect wounded game--it will increase it. It will be used to verify the size of the rack. If the rack is too small, the deer will be left to die and a different one will be shot.

2) Quit being such a lousy shot.

Get closer. Learn to use your gun better. Hit the deer in the correct spot so that you don't contaminate the meat, dumbass. Idiots won't chase down shitty shots anyway.

And just so you know, I don't really care one iota about deer or deer poachers. I regard white tailed deer as four foot tall disease carrying vermin who should be exterminated to the last.

However, if you're going to kill an animal, it's your duty to kill it and not let it suffer.

3) Drones are a nuisance

Drones are loud as fuck and are going to scare the hell out of wildlife. Some of us like the woods because it's relatively quiet. The noise of a drone can carry a very long way in a place like PA.

On 1... No hunter I know would ever abandon a wounded animal to go find a bigger one.

I would argue that most of the hunters I know are just like you say.

However, some percentage are not. And they will be responsible for the majority of the problem.

There is a reason why you can find cows in PA with "COW" painted in orange crylon (wish I were joking, but, sadly, I am not).

You don't know many hunters then, or worse, you believe them when they tell you stories about hunting.

It's a big country. Big enough that the hunters you're thinking of and the ones he's talking about might not even be the same people! Farfetched but it's at least possible.

What stops them from just abandoning small racks as it is? Just the inconvenience of having to find and kill another deer instead?

You need to spend the time to do it. With a drone which is fast and does,t get slowed down you can engagr the next one waay faster.

It's the classic ruining the fun for the law abiding people.

Inconvenience? Hunter here, trying to understand why that would be.

Anybody who shoots a deer without having a pretty good idea of the rack size before pulling the trigger is hunting badly. If you can't see the antlers, how do you even know it's a buck?

I also don't see that much difference between your hypothetical hunter who sees a dying deer via a drone and decides to leave it, vs. seeing a dead deer in person and deciding to leave it. The woods are big (well, not so big in PA, but still pretty big) and realistically he'd be a colossal shithead but it'd be hard to catch him. "That deer? Nah, officer, I did shoot at a big 6-pointer, but I haven't been able to find it. That deer must be somebody else's, it is opening day after all"

edit: I've only hunted in the western states, so practices may differ in the land of treestand-sitting.

> Anybody who shoots a deer without having a pretty good idea of the rack size before pulling the trigger is hunting badly.

I don't think very many people would disagree with you on this point. However, I believe the point is that there are, in fact, many bad hunters, regardless of where they may be sitting.

I'm reminded of this instance where a hunter shot a horse, upon which a 12 year old girl sat, mistaking it for a deer. Searching google for "hunter shoots horse" reveals approx 25 million results, for what it's worth.

https://www.brainerddispatch.com/sports/89-year-old-hunter-g...

All three points are true, except for the bit about "exterminated to the last". Ideally the size of the deer population would reside more or less within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem but the eradication of the apex predators (wolves mainly) has led to an explosion in the population. This has knock on effects that are very destructive to the point that deer in most places might accurately be called "vermin". Those who disagree might consult an authority such as Aldo Leopold on the subject. He knew this a long time ago.

About the hunters: unfortunately there's a lot trash hunters out there now that don't follow norms and what formerly was considered socially aberrant behavior is considered cool, even righteous.

Noisy drones in the forest/desert/canyons wherever truly suck for everyone not the drone operator. Who knew the choppers that flourished in the skies above the Grand Canyon would proliferate to fill every former natural refuge from the clamoring industrial noises of modern life.

> 3) Drones are a nuisance

How difficult would it be to hunt them?

Not hard at all, but you would use a different gun. You want a shotgun not a rifle. (some states only allow shotguns for deer hunting, but you load with a slug not a shot so not the same thing despite being the same gun)

White tail deer are definitely not scared of drone noise. Heck they are not scared of road noise, which is much much louder.

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