Do we really need these gadgets?

by Doug Crowe
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 2:28 PM MDT

Aldo Leopold generally is considered the "Father of Wildlife Management."

His classic book, “A Sand County Almanac,” first published in 1949, still stands as the definitive text on the conservation and management of wildlife resources.

I was rereading this tome recently (for the umpteenth time) when a particular paragraph caught my attention: "The gadgeteer ... has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft or marksmanship, but too often substitutes for them.

“Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the truck and also the trailer. The aggregate poundage becomes tonnage. The traffic in gadgets adds up to astronomical sums, which are soberly published as representing 'the economic value of wildlife.'"

If ol' Aldo felt, more than half a century ago, that gadgets were supplanting skill in the hunting community, what would the man think now?

I'll tell you what I think. I think there is so much hunting crap on the market that it is obscene. However, it is also entertaining and amusing to leaf through sporting goods catalogs.

I did that recently and here are a just a few of the items I found therein.

A bandolier sling with a 50-shell capacity. Who can afford that much ammunition, let alone carry it around? Besides that, anyone who needs 50 rounds of ammo to bag an animal should not be allowed out-of-doors without a chaperone.

A "Rackulator for scoring the antlers or horns of your trophy game animal." It only costs $119.99. Evidently a tape measure costing $1.99 just isn't good enough anymore.

Deer attractant, called "C'MERE DEER." Purportedly, this stuff will drive deer crazy if you just "pour it on stumps or directly on the ground," and it is only $44.99 per gallon.

Or how about a rifle scope, which "accurately measures range from 10 yards to 999 yards with just the push of a button," for only $3,699.99! Lord almighty, what kind of an idiot would shoot at an animal nearly 1,000 yards (10 football fields) away?

You probably also need some Body Shield Pills that will "destroy body odor internally" so those pesky critters can't smell you while you are thrashing around in the woods.

Also, this "safe internal deodorant reduces human waste odors!" (I tore that page out because if my wife were to see it she might make me take some).

Or my all-time favorite, the "Butt Out Tool!" According to the advertisement, you "insert the Butt Out Tool into the anal canal and twist until it grabs the membrane, then steadily pull the Butt Out Tool out of the canal. Extract 10 inches of membrane, tie the membrane off and cut. Its time-saving ease of use makes this the tool every deer hunter needs."

If I showed up in camp with something like that, the guys I hunt with would use it on me!

I swear I didn't make these things up ... and I think I'm gonna be sick. I also think that guys like John Coulter, Daniel Boone, Jim Bridger and Aldo Leopold must all be spinning in their graves!

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