The new year has just begun and with it will come more technology that will benefit hunters. The question is, how long can technology advance before the public and state wildlife agencies can say “enough is enough?” The whole idea of hunting is to maintain our wildlife as a sustainable resource, and to do so under the rules of “fair chase.” We tweak the rules of fair chase all the time, and in the past year, several advances captured the attention of state wildlife agencies.
One advance was the use of crossbows in archery seasons. Understand, this is not an anti-crossbow column. This is about technology going a bit far and leading to problems. I know that young hunters and older disabled hunters benefit from their use. But they are not bows. And they allow easier harvests of game animals than bows, even though they are legally used in bow seasons in most states.
Here is why crossbows are not bows and make it easier to harvest deer with them. First, the average hunter can shoot crossbows more accurately than bows. Crossbow enthusiasts will state the opposite, but it is pretty obvious that crossbows are easier to shoot than bows. Crossbow technology has reached a point where a beginner can shoot a modified arrow into a 3-inch circle at 50, 60, even 80 yards within a very short period of time. Of the 30 states east of the Rockies that allow crossbows in archery season, 25 can separate crossbow from vertical bow harvest. In 10 of those states, the crossbow harvest now exceeds that of vertical bows. In West Virginia that is not because there are more crossbow hunters than bow hunters. Those states where crossbow harvest exceeds the bow harvest are Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Even though those states showed no impacts of crossbows on the overall harvests, in two states (Wyoming and Wisconsin), wildlife officials have had discussions on moving crossbows from the archery season to the gun season because of the perception that crossbows are more accurate than bows. They’ve seen the crossbow ads where 80-yard shots are easily made into a 3-inch circle and the ads liken such accuracy to that of a rifle.
On average, crossbow users have a 10 percent higher success rate for deer than bow hunters. In addition to the fact that they shoot faster, and have scopes mounted on them as you’d find on a rifle, there is another factor that makes it easier for a hunter to kill a deer with a crossbow. Once a bolt (i.e. modified arrow) is loaded into the crossbow, they remain in that position until fired. Movement is critical when hunting deer. With a bow, a hunter must calculate when to draw the bow, so that the deer cannot see the movement. That deer must be within range, which is 30 yards or less for the average archer. And once drawn, the archer cannot hold that position for very long, and must release the arrow. Thus, the drawing and shooting of a bow require lots of movement while the deer is close.
That’s not true for crossbows. Once the deer is seen, the crossbow can be placed in a position to shoot as you would a rifle. The position can be held for many minutes until time to shoot, and shooting requires no movement. Thus, crossbows are not bows. Where will this technology end for crossbows? Maybe it has ended, and my guess is that the crossbow industry does not want their hunting equipment removed from archery seasons. If crossbow users are faced with the restriction that they can only hunt in gun seasons, crossbow sales will drop significantly.
One obvious solution is to create a separate crossbow season, where only crossbows can be used. That will not happen, simply because there aren’t many days left for another season. In West Virginia, we have approximately 150,000 archers and they would not be happy if the crossbow season took some of their season. Likewise, there is no way the rifle deer season would be shortened to create a separate crossbow season.
So where does this leave us? Season wise, everything will stay the same. Equipment-wise, further advances in crossbow efficiency will be bad for crossbow sales, at least for crossbow hunting. Sooner, rather than later, all technology in hunting has to slow down or cease. We can’t continue to give hunters added advantages over the hunted animals.
Next week I’ll talk about the impacts of the advancing technology of trail cameras.
