Alaska is banning use of tasers on wildlife like moose and bears. Because they would rather people just shoot them with a real gun.
Alaska Department of Fish & Game biologist Larry Lewis proposed that the Game board ban tasers on wildlife because he worried about “catch and release hunting.”
“Conceivably someone could Tase a moose or bear, go up and get a picture taken with it, shut the (Taser) off and then release the animal,” he told the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.
Lewis is the state’s “taser expert”; he’s pioneered its use and he trains wildlife control officers in how to tase moose or bear. It’s potentially a great way to avoid killing or even drugging an animal. Plus, if you tase a grizzly, they won’t want to come back to where they’ve been bothering people.
Cops will still be able to tase a moose. Regular civilians will still be able to zap a bear that’s charging them or destroying their car. You just can’t recreationally tase an animal.
“Catch and release” hunting is a real concept. But it’s like the “internet hunting” of the right: an inflammatory concept that isn’t really happening. Just the idea pisses off many hunters. In 2007 a group called the World Hunting Association dreamed up a plan for big buck hunting with drug darts. “Hunters have been so disgusted by the very idea to turn the honored hunting heritage into a sport, that thousand have written letters and emails in protest,” one hunter blogger reported. The NRA said it would debase the sport.
The question is: has anyone ever done it? Lewis told the paper he wanted the the rule to “kind of head off at the pass any non-trained use of this equipment.” So, I’m guessing no.
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Where to SEE BEAR Polar, Grizzly, Black, any kind |
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Where to SEE MOOSE |
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SEE ANIMALS IN ALASKA |
Read about tasers and Alaska wildlife
Darn. Letting this occur would certainly help prove Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” theory.