# Internet "hunt"



## rick_h (Jan 16, 2005)

Hunt game in the wild from the comfort of home

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BOERNE, Texas - Howard Giles was beginning to think he would never get a decent shot at the wild hog. But about an hour into the hunt, the beast finally moved into the rifle's sights and Giles fired.
With the click of a mouse.
That's right, Giles was in his home office in San Antonio, aiming at the animal from a program on his computer. The hog was eating soured corn in the Texas Hill Country some 45 miles away, oblivious to the remote-controlled 30.06 rifle pointing at his neck.
"There was a lot of anticipation. My heart was pumping," Giles recalled. "I felt like I was there."
Welcome to the controversial union of modern technology and game hunting. It's called Live-Shot.com, and it's operated by San Antonio body shop estimator John Lockwood. The Web site allows anyone with Internet access and a mouse to hunt and target shoot by remote control, all in real time.
For Lockwood, it's a way to open up hunting to people who can't or won't walk into the woods with a shotgun or rifle.
But for critics, including state Rep. Todd Smith, a republican from Euless, it's unnatural, unfair and immoral. Smith has every intention of making it illegal, too.
"I don't believe we should be able to kill God's creatures with the click of a mouse," said Smith, who has introduced legislation to ban remote-control hunting. "The creatures of this earth have a hard enough time sustaining themselves while we're after them when we're physically present. They don't need this."
Legislators in other states are also introducing legislation to stop the practice before it takes off, according to published reports.
Lockwood is the first to admit that Internet hunting is not for everybody. In fact, he said he's not interested in it himself because he prefers the outdoor experience and thrill that only in-person hunting or target shooting can produce.
Yet, there are some people who can't or won't brave the elements but who still crave a hunting experience, he said. And whether they're handicapped, stuck in a hunt-free foreign country or just curious beginners, Lockwood thinks they should be able to use his site. And he can't understand why so many people are so viscerally opposed to what he's offering.
He frequently gets profanity-laced e-mail. People tell him he's sick or "off his rocker," or that he's violating the laws of nature. Don Horrocks of the Diamond D Ranch in Junction told him in a recent e-mail that he is a "disgrace to the hunting and animals industry" and vowed to do "everything in my scope to condemn you."
Lockwood insists that what he's doing is not all that different from the standard guided hunt.
He notes there's always a person in the blind to ensure safety. A Texas hunting license, obtainable over the Internet, is required. And Lockwood is standing by with his own rifle in case the one controlled by remote doesn't do the job.
"We're just having the animals come to us instead of going out and tracking them," he said. "They're not penned up. They're just as free-ranging as on any other ranch."
The system is deceptively simple, all of it contained in an 8-foot-by-12-foot wooden trailer on a 220-acre ranch about 15 miles east of Boerne. Sitting on a folding banquet table inside is an assortment of computer equipment.
Wires from the computer snake over to a pan-tilt motor, a wide-angle camera and, atop metal brackets, a Ruger .22 rifle fitted with a scope and a 10-round clip. The smaller caliber rifle is used for target shooting.
On a recent Saturday, the Ruger was pointing toward a target gallery - balloons, tiny metal sheep and the like - about 30 yards away.
Suddenly, the motor whirred into action, lifting the rifle slightly upward and to the left. On the adjacent computer screen, the camera brought a bright yellow balloon into the scope's crosshairs.
A loud whack erupted from the gun barrel, and a balloon pop could be heard in the distance. The gun moved again to the right, fixed on another target and fired again. Another hit.
Hundreds of miles away, in Ligonier, Ind., paraplegic Dale Habgerg had his eyes trained on a computer screen, which displayed the wilted balloons he had just fired upon from the Live-Shot.com Web site.
He operates the on-screen controls - four arrows in a circle and a "fire" button in the middle - by manipulating a special joystick he can insert into his mouth. In the same fashion, early next month, Hagberg, 38, hopes to bag a feral hog.
He had been an avid hunter before he broke his neck in a diving accident 18 years ago. Now paralyzed from the chin down and confined to a bed, Hagberg has never managed to shake off the desire to hunt wild animals.
If everything works out, Hagberg will become the second Live-Shot afficionado to shoot a hog by remote control. The hunt is set for early April.
"I'm excited and nervous," he said, speaking in short bursts through a respirator and relying on a nurse to relay his comments over the phone. "I'm not sure I'll be able to get aimed at the animal before it moves away, so I'll have to wait and see what happens."
More than 350 people - from places as far flung as Hong Kong, France and Peru - have already signed up as members of Live-Shot.com. They pay $14.95 a month and $5.95 each time they fire off 10 rounds of ammunition at inanimate targets.
The hunting is extra: it costs $300 for two hours and $75 for an additional hour. Meat processing, shipping and taxidermy costs are not included and can cost hundreds more. Lockwood says he's taking reservations for future hunts.
Only exotic or imported game are stalked. Lockwood settled on that approach because regulations for native species - like white-tail deer - in many cases require the hunter to physically attach a tag to the animal before it's moved, he said.
And as it turns out, the state Parks and Wildlife Department, worried that remote-control hunting could get out of hand, has issued a proposed regulation banning the practice for native game animals. Smith's legislation would prohibit it altogether.
Giles, who got to do the first hunt because he's a friend and co-worker of Live-Shot.com's owner, said he doesn't see why it would get out of control.
A Boerne native who grew up hunting along the banks of the Guadalupe River, Giles has killed hogs with guns and arrows both. Doing it with a remote-controlled 30.06 from 45 miles away, he said, was a lot harder than he thought it would be.
If anything, it's more difficult than shooting in person because cameras and swivel motors afford the hunter only so much vision and motion, he said.
"I thought it was going to be more like a video game," said Giles. "It was nothing like I figured it would be."
Giles said when the hog appeared on his computer screen, he felt all the rush and excitement he had known in the Hill Country of his youth, despite being nowhere near the action.
When he finally did click the "fire" button, the hog was hit in the neck, but it wasn't enough to take him out. Lockwood, standing by with his own 30.06, had to jump into action. It would take another two shots from Lockwood's rifle before the hog went down for good.
"I don't know how people are going to feel towards it," Giles said. "But by all means it's a real hunting experience."


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## quackattack (Sep 27, 2003)

:eyeroll: Wow. Shooting live animals with the click of the mouse....to me that isn't hunting. Hunting is taking time out of your life to go buy a license, a trip to the local sporting-goods store to get you equipment and ammunition. Then, going out in nature and scouting and using you knowledge of the animal you are pursuing and working hard to try get the all the hard work to payoff and possibly bag that tropy. Its NOT grabbing a glass of hot chocolate and sitting down next to you computer and with the click of a mouse taking a live animal hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles away. 
It just isn't right.
uke:


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## strand (Sep 29, 2004)

This was posted up a while back and it does make a guy sick.

I am curious as to how the legislation will pan out. Hopefully, the citizens of Texas will speak out and voice their opinions to get it shut down.

Does anybody know off hand if ND has taken any steps to ban this before it starts?


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## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

CBS evening news had a report on this tonight. 
The report said even most Texans do not like it. I agree this is killing not hunting. Hope a bill is drafted for next legislative session to outlaw this in ND!!!!!

Later
Bob


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## The Norseman (Jan 8, 2005)

Good Morning everyone,

Also, seen the CBS news report on Internet shooting/hunting. I agree with you all this is not hunting.
I do believe that it has a place for people that medically can not hunt ever again. I will have to say it
again, the one with the most money wins.

This is not a new technology either; it's basically robotics with Internet.
The ramifications of this are scary. Sounds far fetched, but one could use this for pre-medataded murder (or it has already)(in a different form?), set up the robot, clean the crime scene, pick the date, sit back and wait for the right moment.

I agree with some of the stuff in the report, but it is scary.

But if it is going to be outlawed, I believe guided hunts, and game farms with raised hybrid game animals,
board casting it on TV (boring, same thing over and over), should also be outlawed, this is not hunting to me either.

Going out to hunter safety class, buying the rifle/shotgun, buying the shells, buying the license, getting permission to hunt, visiting, going hunting with family/friends, and the whole experience is hunting to me.

This has gone too far, this is crazy, this is ground breaking.


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## rowdie (Jan 19, 2005)

It just shows where guided hunts and game preserve hunting is taking us.

What happens in say 50 to 100 years when/if robotics have evovled to the point where you could control a robot with remote controls to do your hunting for you.

Or, use the robotic device they are using now, and set it for yourself on your own land in your own tree stand. Don't tell anyone, and then hunt from your own home or by remote anywhere. No scent to worry about, no cold, hunger, and just wait for the big buck. :eyeroll:


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## StillKillsTheOldWay (Nov 14, 2004)

I am from Texas and I have spoken to nobody who supports this. I and many others are doing everything within our power to stop this. I have written my congressman 2 times a week since this news broke and they have SAID they are working to stop it. If they do not, I will seriously considered leaving the state. I am sorry this was spawned by a Texan! uke:


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## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

StillKills
Everyone is trying to make a buck about any way they can. Just like many inventions the consequences are not thought about at the time the item was invented. a good example is the internal combustion engine. Do you think when it was invented they were wondering how many people would be killed every year in accidents?

This guy had an Idea unfortunatly he didn't think it through very well. what is next remote control murders, computer sniper attacks, you could kill hundreds of people with this technology and never be known. If hackers got in it would be a big mess. Way to many negatives with this to even consider it a useful experience.

this has to be stopped and the technology has to be restricted somehow, it could be a disaster in the making.

No need to apologize for being from Texas, it is a great state. I spent about a year there going from city to city because of my job. Dallas and Amarillo were my favorite cities. The landscape diversity in Texas is amazing.

Later
Bob


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## Draker16 (Nov 23, 2004)

I think this makes the sport of hunting as a whole look bad, this gives the PETA people another thing to complain about and I think that this will push over some of the people who are on the fence about whether hunting is ethical so say that it is not. I think its sad really, its definately NOT hunting its like playing a really expensive video game and the people who pay to do this are probably the same people who shoot deer out of their truck windows because they are to lazy to get out and do some real hunting.


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## HUNTNFISHND (Mar 16, 2004)

Ban it! The sooner the better!


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