US game plods deploy robot enforcement menagerie American game wardens and wildlife plods are deploying lifelike robotic bears, deer and turkeys in the battle against poachers, according to reports. National Geographic reports on the trend in wilderness robo-prey sting busts, explaining how scofflaw huntsmen are lured into the arms of the law: Unbeknownst to the driver, the …
It seems to me you'd have to have some military grade stuff to stand up to gunfire and keep browsing.
John Steinbeck claimed to have known a cook in California who nailed a pair of antlers to a tree stump and made a tidy profit and the end of season from the lead he harvested from the stump.
What you didn't mention is the main type of crime these decoys are used for is to catch so-called hunters who shoot from moving vehicles.
These are the idiots who keep loaded weapons on their passenger seats in case they see a deer or other game on the side of the road. They will shoot at will, regardless of whether they are in a legal hunting area and regardless of how unsafe shooting from a moving vehicle could be to anyone who maybe hunting legally, hiking or camping.
Because they don't take the time to get a good look, it's not very difficult to fool them with decoys.
These people are a menace. They are precisely the reason there are so many gun-related fatalities in US national parks and other areas where hunting is banned.
cut n paste from the internet, but you can't copyright jokes, right?
A man was on an all day hiking trip in the mountains of Colorado, and it's about noon, when a blizzard blows in. So, he's out walking around, lost, for nearly a week. He was starving to death! So after a few more days, he sees a spotted owl. So he grabs a rock and throws it at it, killing it. He's about halfway through it when the ranger drives up. "My god man! You're eating a spotted owl! What's wrong with you? That's an endangered animal! There are only like seven left! That's a crime!" He says, writing out a ticket. "I'm going to have to see you in court." The ranger leads the man out of the forest and a week later he goes into the courtroom. The judge says, "Young man, that was a spotted owl! You ate an endangered species! That could be a twenty year sentence!" "Now wait just a minute!" the man said. "Let me explain! I was lost, and there was a blizzard! I had been out there for a week! I was starving to death! It's not like I had gone out specifically to eat a spotted owl! It was either me or him." "Well when you put it that way..." The judge said. "You'll just get a small fine. it was survival. But tell me, what did it taste like?" The man thoughht for a moment before answering. "it was a cross between a whooping crane and a bald eagle."
I'm going to agree with SuperTim. I'd even go so far as to say having an operable robot grizzly is preferable to a dead real one.
So now that the word is out, can you get off from a true poaching charge by claiming "I never intended to shoot that deer your honor. I thought it was one of those robotic decoys."?
I remember seeing something like this years ago on TV. A wooden deer was set up off the edge of the road, and a guy drives past, stops and whips out his crossbow (!) while still sitting in the drivers seat, and takes a shot at the deer. Amazingly he hits but the arrow bounces off. He looks a bit surprised, then lines up for another shot at it...
Around about then, the rangers jump out of hiding and arrest him.
There are plenty od sickos out that that simply love killing things.
Two real incidents come to mind. One was a 4WD (these guys must have tiny tools, cause they drive monster trucks) that swerved to the side of the road to kill our chahuahua.
The other small-guy swerved to the curb in order to squash and destroy my 8 year old daughter's pink fuzzy... (wait for it)
....EARMUFFS Thank God thay were not on her head at the time.
I have long entertained the thought of posting cute little plush animals along the highway sporting reflective button eyes, and stuffed with sheet rock screws. (10 x more effective than nails for tire flattening)
I thought that bears and robots were mortal enemies*. Or perhaps I'm suffering from temperal dissonance and this is what makes it kick off?
I can just see a frisky grizzly gets it on with robo-shebear and gets a nasty shock to his nether regions.
I like robots, but if that happened to me, I'd do what I could to destroy them!
*At least, according to a certain angry flower, they are.
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