Lawmaker targets remote-control hunting in Illinois

~ About two dozen states already have outlawed the method.

Slouched at a computer, the "hunter" perks up as a 12-point buck eases into view on his screen. Maneuvering his mouse, he swivels the rifle and focuses the cross hairs. With a click of the mouse, the rifle fires a bullet, mortally wounding the animal.

Call it hunting by remote control. And though still more concept than trend, lawmakers increasingly have their sights set on stopping the practice in its tracks.

State Rep. Dan Reitz, D-Steelville, has proposed banning such hunting in Illinois, saying such "ready, aim, click" kills -- or the prospect of them -- push the ethical envelope and violate the spirit of "fair chase" hunts.

"I just think it's wrong," Reitz said, adding the use the technology would "give all sportsmen a black eye."

The advent of technology that enables people to stalk and kill their real-life prey online has alarmed hunters and lawmakers intent on preemptively blocking the practice. About two dozen states already have outlawed the method, which the Humane Society of the United States calls pay-per-view slaughter.

"The animal has no chance. There's no challenge for you -- except knowing how to use a computer and push a button," Arkansas state Sen. Ruth Whitaker, a Republican, said last month in introducing a measure calls for banning potential cyber hunting in her state. "You never left your tufted sofa. What's sportsmanlike about that?"

Hunting from anywhere

The issue emerged in early 2005, when Texas entrepreneur John Lockwood set up a Web site that allowed subscribing hunters with a high-speed Web connection to shoot antelope, wild pigs and other game on his 220-acre San Antonio spread via remote control -- from anywhere. Lockwood offered to send the animals' heads to subscribers.

During a demonstration, a friend of Lockwood used a computer 45 miles away to shoot a wild hog as it fed at his ranch but, according to news reports, only wounded the animal. Lockwood, who was on site, finished the kill.

Lockwood's venture barely got started before Texas lawmakers caught wind of it, swooped in and shot it down. Since then, other states have hustled to get something on their books barring the practice, according to the Humane Society.

Even diehard hunters are opposed, saying that shooting an animal via computer isn't sporting and doesn't require the element of fair chase in conventional hunting through forest, field or marsh.

Some states have posed similar objections to "canned" hunting, during which big game hunted in captivity as trophies.

'Sick ideas'

"We believe sick ideas have a bad way of spreading, so want to make sure we nip this in the bud and ban it in all 50 states," Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, said of cyber hunting. The group also is pressing for a federal ban.

Pro-hunting groups including Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association also have opposed remote-control hunting.

Gary Harpole, an Illinois hunter who figures he's killed 100 deer, most with a bow, said such a practice "takes away from what hunting really is all about: getting outdoors, experiencing nature."

"To me, 90 percent of hunting is the experience, 10 percent is the harvest," says Harpole, who runs a hunter's lodge at his home in rural Nebo. Bagging a buck by computer, he says, "is a lazy way of hunting."

But Lockwood has said the technology could help people with disabilities or perhaps servicemen oversees shoot game. And an attendant in the blind with the rifle could override any unsafe or unethical shots.

Lockwood does not have a listed home telephone number and could not be reached for this story. But he told The Associated Press last year that legislatures barring the practice "have no clue what they're passing laws against."

"Ever since we stopped running after our prey and killing with our hands, we've evolved by distancing ourselves further and further from the game and making it more and more efficient for whatever reason we want to take it," Lockwood has said.

Reitz isn't swayed by such arguments.

"There's a lot of opportunities out there for people with disabilities," he said. "I just think this is a bad way to do it."

His bill, now before an Illinois House rules committee, would amend the state's wildlife code to bar a person from operating, providing, selling, using or offering "any computer software or service that allows a person not physically present at the hunt site to remotely control a weapon that could be used to take wildlife by remote operation."

Use of such equipment would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and $1,500 in fines. Those who provided the software or services could face a misdemeanor carrying a possible 364 days in jail and $2,500 in fines.

Missouri already has such a ban on the books, last year adopting an administrative rule specifying that "wildlife may be taken only in the immediate physical presence of the taker and may not be taken by use of computer-assisted remote hunting devices." That prohibition takes effect next month.

Bill Heatherly, the Missouri Department of Conservation's wildlife programs supervisor, said he never imagined the need for such a measure despite the sport's astounding technological leaps since man first chucked rocks to kill dinner.

"I've been telling people I'm starting to understand how my father must have felt in his later years," he says. "Certainly, I didn't imagine this."

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Reitz's bill is HB201.