HI-TECH IN THE HUNT

Exactly five years ago, our magazine dedicated a number to a similar topic. What has changed during this time in the hunting high-tech?

In terms of assortment – in general, nothing. Is that a surprise was the rapid spread of unmanned aerial vehicles, which are called drones. If in 2013, quadcopters were some exotic, now they are quite affordable for even ordinary citizens.

But what has happened is real change in prices. Manufacturers, of course, howl like a wolf howl, but the fact remains: in the production of technological innovations “on the edge” competition is very high, and the manufacturer who blew his cheeks yesterday from his “exclusivity” literally today – not even in the morning, but with the transition through midnight, – effortlessly “made” some Belarus, Croatia or China. Of course, the “price rule” continues to operate: an item with a value of N dollars remains worse than an item with a value of N x 1O dollars. But an item costing N x 1O dollars can cost N in just half a year, and what N cost is simply washed out of the market. Nothing, dear manufacturers, work more, it is useful for you.

And one more change begins to occur – and it is no longer in the range and not in the cost, but in the heads of the citizens.

It has repeatedly been thought that high-tech in the hunt should be banned. Well, probably not all, but some of its manifestations. Newer ones are thermal imagers, for example. The same drones, which, according to rumors, are already used to search and pound the beast on the hunter.

And it seems, on the one hand, it is. Deny is our everything, of course. I, as a son of my time and of my country, who in various years had a bearing on law enforcement, also take these appeals with pleasure.

And then … And then I start thinking.

First of all – how much of this high-tech on hand? The mid-range imager continues to cost as a used car (and a good imager is like a new car). Of course, you can find the beast from the drone, but then you have to approach it, and then all the advantages will be on the side of the beast.

And the main question – he, as always, turns out to be in the practice of this very law enforcement. If during inspection of the vehicle, the imager does not stand on the weapon, but lies next to it – that’s all, the inspector is free. I went to the shooting range, accidentally left, no one forbids transporting thermal imagers to the grounds in the car. If the drone hangs over a noble deer or elk – prove that they are looking for him for the purpose of hunting, and do not conduct highly artistic shooting for the blog. No, I have no doubt that smart people will hear my words, write the appropriate amendments to the legislation and take them into account, too, but I assure you that other nuances and other questions will arise immediately.

And besides – what, without thermal imagers (and even without night sights), citizens do not hunt at night? Yes, since the late seventies, when I was still an activist of the “Green squad” of Leningrad State University. Zhdanov, I know the concept of “farshchikov”! And from the air? Even in the middle of the 2000s, some Irkutsk outfitters simply officially offered to hunt with a hang glider in their services. I assure you, a double trike with a driver and a gunner is more destructive than any drone! And again, I note that a person who has the opportunity to buy for 800 LLC rubles. a thermal imager, probably will not make much of the effort to order a helicopter for hunting at the cost of 170,000 rubles. at one o’clock.

And to further clarify the situation, I remind you that the most detrimental effect on the game was not at all by thermal imagers and drones, but by the mass distribution of snowmobiles and ATVs, which made the most remote corners of the middle belt forests accessible, that distant taiga and tundra. I’m not going to talk about propeller boats and hovercraft – one of the most destructive means of moto-mobility, which only I know.