Federal Legislation Would Unplug Pay-Per-View Hunting

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With Internet hunting, animals can be shot and killed from anyone's living room couch.

The relatively new practice of killing an animal with the click of a mouse, known as Internet hunting, has recently found itself in the crossfire. Hunting groups and lawmakers have joined The Humane Society of the United States to shut down Internet hunting just two years after its virtual debut.

Thirty-three states have outlawed the practice, and now Congress has introduced legislation, the Computer-Assisted Remote Hunting Act, H.R. 2711, to do the same.

Internet Innovation in Cruelty

Internet hunting is the creation of Texas insurance estimator John Lockwood. When Lockwood's website went live in 2005, any La-Z-Boy Daniel Boone could log on to Live-Shot.com, pick an animal to kill and charge the "hunt" to a credit card. The "hunter" would see a small fenced enclosure appear on his or her screen.

From a camera mounted on a rifle hundreds or thousands of miles away, a Live-Shot customer could aim with a mouse and click as soon as he sighted on the unsuspecting animal. The mouse click triggered the remote-controlled rifle. The animal victim, with nowhere to hide, had no chance of escaping with his life.

Common Ground

In Internet hunting, hunters and animal advocates have found something they can agree on. National Rifle Association spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs has put the nation's largest pro-hunting, pro-gun organization squarely on record against it.

"The NRA has always maintained that fair chase, being in the field with your firearm or bow, is an important element of hunting tradition," Hobbs told the Sacramento Bee in 2005. "Sitting at a desk in front of your computer, clicking at a mouse, has nothing to do with hunting."

Even the Safari Club International—a group that rarely sees any form of hunting it doesn't love—has taken a stand against hunting over the Internet.

"It doesn't meet any fair-chase criteria," Jerod Broadfoot, a lobbyist for the Safari Club, told the Medford (Oregon) Mail Tribune in 2005.

End Click and Kill Hunting Once and For All

Almost as soon as Live-Shot.com went online in early 2005, the Texas state legislature outlawed Internet hunting, shutting Live-Shot down. Since then thirty-three other states have followed suit.

The federal legislation would prevent the start-up of similar operations across the country, still an option in states that don't outlaw the practice. 

Representatives Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Tom Davis (R-Va.) introduced the Computer-Assisted Remote Hunting Act, H.R. 2711. Narrow in scope, the Sherman-Davis bill will not impact any other type of hunting. In the last session of Congress, identical legislation was cosponsored by some of the leading hunting advocates in the House of Representatives—including Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Don Young (R-Ark.), Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Related Links

Internet Hunting: Where Does Your State Stand?

The Computer-Assisted Remote Hunting Act