https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/102...-near-te-aroha
Printable View
The Kaimais aren’t west of Te Aroha? Maybe on farmland, or more likely stuff reporting.
Let's hope he makes it... And he is the only one this roar....
IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET
This really makes my blood boil, EVERY bloody year some fucking retard does this, every year, without fail. Don't go giving me that "it could happen to anyone" shit either, it happens to asshole over inflated ego sociopaths that shouldn't be in charge of a firearm. Time to get tough on them, it's not manslaughter, it's murder, lock them up and throw away the key.
Dont get all upset yet. It may not be a case of Identifying the target, it could be an accidental discharge which is breaking a very different rule...or even inflicted upon the shooter by themselves if that is the case.....Either way, IT SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED!
I totally agree. If it is miss identification there seems to be science providing excuses as well.
People seeing and identifying deer and firing.....killing or wounding a human.
Its bullshit imo. I have never seen phantom deer morph into humans or vice versa.
Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk
Although 64% of firearms incidents [not necessarily fatalities] while hunting large game ARE due to misidentification, perhaps we should wait a bit before analysing it. Nothing has come out about this fatality to suggest it's a case of target misidentification. It may have been self-inflicted during a trip or a fall.
If you ARE indeed referring to target misidentification, records have been kept since 1979, and 26 of the 39 years since then have had a fatality attributed to target misidentification. So there have been 13 years where there were none.
No. If there was no intent to kill a person, then it's manslaughter.
Yeah, nah. Sorry, I'm going to go there. IF this was a case of target misidentification, then it CAN happen to anyone. Humans are fallible, and will always make mistakes. You can follow the 7 basic rules and still fuck it up. In most cases of misidentification of the target, the shooter was adamant they were shooting at an animal. Confirmation Bias is a real thing where your brain tricks itself into seeing what it is expecting to see. It happens to pilots and has explained various plane crashes, and it happens to hunters who are searching the bush for a deer. They are thinking "is that a deer" and looking for things that reinforce that view, rather than asking " is it a person" and looking for evidence of that.
We ask ourselves the wrong questions in the heat of the moment and it sends us to the wrong conclusion.
There are no such things as accidents, so instead of pointing the finger at the shooter and saying "they fucked up. They didn't follow the rules", we need to find out HOW and WHY they messed up and got it so wrong. That way we can indentify the what went wrong and develop techniques to reduce the number of times it occurs.
There is a whole subject on this, called Human Factors - a study on how and why humans make mistakes and how they contribute to accidents. This is not unique to hunting, as it happens across industries. Aviation, Maritime shipping, Oil & Gas, Medicine, etc.
Yes, the shooter is to blame, but blame does nothing to prevent this happening again. I'm interested in the nitty gritty of the how and the why, and hopefully learning something from this tragedy. Cognitive biases do not make these mistakes ok, but it helps us understand how and why they happen so we can be aware of our own fallibility and develop techniques to mitigate it.
This is a good time to stop and have a read of Mountain Safety Council's research on hunting accidents and fatalities. https://issuu.com/nzmountainsafetyco...22887/44292171
Quote..”It happens to pilots and has explained various plane crashes, and it happens to hunters who are searching the bush for a deer.”
That statement in itself is a very interesting point,I know I’ve been guilty of it myself(the aircraft side of things).....read impact Erebus,some very interesting info on this very subject.I think Stretch,makes a compelling argument here,yes there is carelessness,fuckwits etc,very hard to defend this action,and as R93 states,a deer does not look like a human,follow the 7 rules and your ticketiboo.....not so.....it will be interesting to read the dialogue from the shooter and the “shot”......
Tragic nonetheless
First one of the season, I hope it's the last but there's a pretty good chance going from years before it may not be. Roar has barely started.
@stretch get of the grass mate all you have done is explained the thought processes of a sociopath that thinks they are to clever to follow any kind of proper procedure and wrapped it up in a big old wet blanket of an excuse called "human nature"
I sure as fuck don't go through any stupid "heat of the moment" thought process that would result in me shooting another human being and if you really believe the dribble you have said then maybe you need to go hand in your licence.
Fukn pain in the arse this roar thing. Can't wait for duck shooting to start so I only have to share the hills with a few others.
Bought a huntech blaze orange ghillie but now i'm not convinced that it is more safe than anything else, might just make me an easy target for some fuckwit dreaming of taking a photo for his facebook with my corpse.
I'll just be hunting by boosting up the main track to clearings looking at other clearings for the roar so hopefully i'll be safe. It would take a complete fuckwit and snapshot to shoot somebody sitting glassing from a clearing.
maybe hunters aged 50-64 should be banned during the roar as they account for 59% of human killers :P:thumbsup:
I don't get where sociopaths come into this. Is that where a shooter doesn't care one way or another if it's a human? I'm not calling Confirmation Bias an excuse at all. It's one reason these incidents happen, but it does not excuse the behaviour - it merely explains it.
Your second point makes it sound like you're saying "It'll never happen to me". That's a dangerous attitude. I think awareness of Confirmation Bias can make people safer hunters, IF they employ techniques to minimise it's effects.
Which bit do you think is bullshit? Confirmation Bias in general, or it's application to the scenario where a hunter misidentifies their target?
Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk
Just reading this,...something is so wrong....so called “experienced” hunters..REALLY??? The so called seven rules do not take into account human factors,when the “hunt” is on.......Im in the buisness of dealing with “human factors”.....humans make unbelievably stupid decisions,.....no amount of “solid” rules will solve this issue,.....the deaths and shootings prove that rules,no matter hard you stick to them ...cockups are inevitable......The human factors Gibo?,some/ many are better at dealing with them than others.....
Quote....Long senior mistook his son for a deer through about 20 metres of bush after spending a considerable amount of time trying to identify his target.
Tragically, he was convinced his target was a deer when he pulled the trigger.
An experienced hunter and member of the Southland Deerstalkers Association, Long senior, like so many before him, failed to follow the basic firearms rule. Identify the target before pulling the trigger.
He isn't alone.
Just 11 months earlier, another experienced Southland deer stalker and hunting safety advocate, 56-year-old Wayne Edgerton from Tuatapere, accidentally shot and killed 25-year-old Adam Hill who was hunting with a separate party in the Longwood Range.
It was inexplicable, Judge Michael Turner said at Edgerton's sentencing, that a man with his background would pull the trigger without clearly identifying his target.
That appears to be the crux of the problem.
Both Edgerton and Stephen Long were convinced they had identified their targets and were shooting at deer, not people.
In Long's case, he told police he spent "two or three" minutes confirming it was a deer, both with his naked eye and by looking through the rifle scope. He moved left and then right to identify his target and he saw, he mistakenly believed, the deer feeding and antlers on its head before pulling the trigger, killing his son.
Edgerton, hearing several roars of what he believed was a stag, walked towards the sound and saw, both with the naked eye and through a scope, what he believed was a deer. He checked the target again with his naked eye, raised the rifle, and fired, killing Hill who was wearing brightly coloured hunting clothing.
Only Davidson, Long and Edgerton, and the others who mistakenly shot people while deer hunting, know what was going through their minds before they pulled the trigger.
But what is known is many hunters who fatally shoot other hunters convince themselves it is a deer - rather than prove to themselves it is not a deer.
New Zealand Deerstalkers Association president Bill O'Leary says hunters should treat every movement and sound in the bush as being a person.
"And it's only when the deer positively identifies itself that you pull the trigger."
Positively identifying a deer requires hunters to see the head, neck and shoulders of the animal at the same time, not pieces of a deer or what they think are pieces of a deer.
He also stressed that hunters should wear high-visibility orange or blue so it was easier for other hunters to identify them.
They should never use their telescopic sights to identify deer, which Edgerton and Long had both done, because the sights magnified the image and often showed only a small piece of the animal.
O'Leary says about 60 per cent of people shot in mistaken identity cases while deer hunting were shot by people in their own hunting parties, as was the case with Vanderley and Long.
Reasons for the shootings vary, with mistaken identity and the accidental discharge of firearms prevalent.
Two of the five cases this year were the result of failing to identify the target.
"We know why they happen. They don't identify their targets. Why does it happen? That's got us flummoxed," O'Leary says.
"We traditionally thought it was people who were young and inexperienced. But we have got people who are middle-aged, experienced hunters, and they are failing to identify."
O'Leary, who chairs a multi-agency committee focused on improving gun safety, says a possible reason is that some older hunters have poorer eyesight and are perhaps a bit blase when hunting. They perhaps rely too much on their past deer shooting experiences to draw conclusions - instead of going through the methodical process of fully identifying their targets.
Older and experienced hunters were often looking for a flicker of movement, such as the white from a deer's tail, and not seeing the whole of the deer, O'Leary suggests.
Hunting tragedies while spotlighting was another issue being looked at, but it comes back to the golden rule. It is safe if people identify their targets, O'Leary says.
O'Leary and Nicole McKee, the former NZ Mountain Safety Council programme manager for firearms and hunter safety, believe the increasing numbers of hunters in New Zealand is a factor in the increased number of shootings.
"Hunting nationally is on the increase, there's more people out there participating," McKee said when she was still working at the mountain safety council.
Her aim was to have the seven basic rules of firearms safety embedded into the brains of hunters, so they abide by the rules as naturally as motorists put seatbelts on when getting into their cars.
McKee says at least one of the seven basic firearms rules was broken in each of the reports about hunting tragedies she has read.
"When you read some of this stuff you will be pretty gobsmacked about how some of these events occurred. We are actually trying to say, these things have happened due to the breakdown of common sense and people failing to abide by the seven rules."
Richard Vanderley says each time another deer hunting tragedy hits the news, the death of his own son comes flooding back.
"It hits you like a wave again. You know another couple of families have been torn apart.
"Accidents, carelessness, stupidity ... but the fallout is just immense."
The NZ Mountain Safety Council, which is undergoing a restructure, plans to analyse hunting tragedies and injuries so trends and hotspots can be identified and new initiatives developed to try and keep hunters safe, she says.
But there is no simple fix, and McKee knows it, because the human factor comes into play.
"Once they are out there and in the thick of the roar and the adrenaline is pumping, people forget those things [safety rules]. It's still going to happen, but if we can reduce it because people think more and are better educated, it's worthwhile. If a life is saved, it's worthwhile."
With more than 241,000 licensed firearms holders in New Zealand, McKee suggests a way to get the message to the masses is to get alongside corporates and publicise safety messages ahead of the popular stag and duck hunting seasons, when accidental shootings often occur.
She believes the number of tragedies can be reduced.
But for some it is too late, and the pain doesn't go away.
Mark Vanderley, and 27 others killed in deer hunting tragedies in the past 24 years, aren't coming home.
"We just feel he has been robbed," Vanderley's mother says.
"He was a good person, he had a lot to offer. It's just so unfair."
- Stuff
Quote”The NZ Mountain Safety Council, which is undergoing a restructure, plans to analyse hunting tragedies and injuries so trends and hotspots can be identified and new initiatives developed to try and keep hunters safe, she says.
But there is no simple fix, and McKee knows it, because the human factor comes into play.”......end quote
Gibo...from the same article......this bloke must be full of shit too.....nothing personal,I have the opinion that you know your stuff,and are sure you personally would never make these types of errors,......we are all different,individuals “human factors” are different,...I see and deal with it every day,.......human factors fuck up basic rules
I'm not saying they are full of shit, I just don't support this easy excuse every time someone is shot. If you know what sex the animal is and a guess at its age I cant see how a human would fit into any of that. Some people also need to settle the fuck down when hunting, its only a bloody deer (or what have you).
About 25 years ago I was hunting in Pureora when I heard a noise up the ridge ahead of me. I could see the rear end of a deer facing a way from me. I could see the rump patch and about half its back. I decided to move ahead of a small shrub before I took a shot. The deer moved a bit and looked a bit funny. It seemed to have two rump patches. It took a few seconds before I realised it was actually a hunter.
Where did I say it was OK? It does not excuse or condone what happens, it merely helps explain HOW or WHY it happens, in some, not all cases. I'm vocal because these are not accidents. There are very few, if any, true accidents. The shooter messed up, but that's not the end of it. WHY did they? "Identify your target beyond all doubt" needs to be broken down further. Doubt yourself further. Don't trust your eyes or your ears or your brain.
I've seen first hand how confirmation bias has lead people to the incorrect conclusion in land navigation, air navigation, piloting, engineering, and I can see how it could affect someone trying to ID a target.
Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk
Yeah mate,great points,I’m with you on that,........it’s incredible,sad,deplorable how many of us are getting shot.......reading the words from these articles doesnt do us any justice,because it’s does not address the situation,the time and the happening event,.....fucked up I know.....I see pilots do fucking dumb shit in a simulator ,crashing airplanes,and it’s like,are you fucking serious,what drove you to that.......it’s a complete loss of your environment,situational awareness,rules etc etc.......but what drove them to that?????.....what drove them to disobey 7 basic rules that should have stopped these events...
I think we are all thinking the same things just all a bit emo on it :)
Somehow we need to teach people to slow down, be sure and know what they need to see before pulling that trigger. Not easy I know.
For just that reason I carry a strip of Blaze orange cloth (about the size of a beanie unfolded) and a safty pin with me. If I shoot a deer close enough to the road as to carry the whole thing out I pin the strip of cloth the back of the deer.
Thank you for that link Stretch, That booklet holds a lot of eyeopening information.
Perhaps a thread on near misses (ie slips/falls/what stug posted) might be educational for everyone? Far more constructive than the direction this thread is taking.
Ditto on that mate....the reoccurring them in the article above is....”they don’t identify the target”.....because if they did,we wouldn’t be having this conversation.......there has to be a much better attempt by all of us to figure this out and help one another out.....because sure as shit,I don’t want to be on either end of one of these stories
Been out and about over Easter in Pureora, have met all sorts in my travels. Some on their only hunting outing for the year and have to shoot something. Others quite relaxed and waiting for the bush to go back to "normal". One thing that really stood out was the number of hunters in blue blaze.
Words from a mate of mine (no, not Ginger McScragglyBeard). Worth a read:
https://gearlocker.nz/well-the-roar-is-nearly-upon-us/
Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk
My opinion is that humans are actually pretty fukn dumb we can't even follow basic common sense rules we can't stick to a speed limit don't stop for red lights or stop signs don't stop for pedestrian crossings cross centre lines use phone when driving and the list is endless so its highly unlikely that your going to stop the dumb arses shooting each other most intelligent animal on the planet. Yea right
I want to relay a true happening in the same place - Pureora (been a few fatalities there to I might add)
Mate of mine came back to camp in a bit of a state.
He was coming down a ridge (a ridge that was reasonably open covered in Kidney ferns)
He luckily spotted approx 60m away a Hunter knelt down with rifle pointed directly at him - he yelled out (he does not remember what he yelled)
He also cannot remember the time frame between yelling and the Hunter standing with rifle down
That Hunter dropped his rifle and clasped his face in his hands
After an emotional and most likely a verbal abuse from mate (he had a firy temper) the Hunter said to him over and over again
"mate - you were a Deer 110% in my eyes"
How - how - he kept saying could I see a Deer when clearly now you are another man
It woke us all up - as then (80's) there were a few of us getting tipped over
The Hunter had been hunting a long time and he just could not believe what happened
If my mate had not of screamed out - as Hunter said - he would be dead !!
With it being my patch local and an area I hunt frequently knowledge indicates it was in the Tuahu Track vicinity. Very steep country on the Waikato side > I'm leaning to it having occurred in the exotic forestry block (Rayonier Forests )
Attached map for reference track > lakes private block
Tuahu Track: Walking and tramping in Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park
Its interesting that there are emotional responses here (anger is an emotion) from people who claim that they would never shoot anyone because they are rational and sensible. Its a paradox. In the moment who knows how we would respond. If we suffer from emotional over-ride on a hunting forum goodness knows what we might do in the bush.
So you're saying there's a possibility you could shoot someone because you mistook them for a deer @Tahr?
I believe this particular instance was a case of mis-identification of target and the poor bugger was indeed shot by another member of his hunting party.
RIP
Had the same thing happen in Pureora a few years after the first incident. My mate and I were stalking along a face I looked up and saw a hunter kneeling down aiming his rifle, looking through the scope, at where my mate was. I yelled out and the hunter put his rifle down. He had heard us coming through the bush. He was waiting for my mate to come out in the open before he took the shot. I not 100% certain he had seen him and mistaken him for a deer, but he was expecting him to be a deer.
The mind set that needs to change is the expectation of seeing a deer. We need to expect to see another hunter, then realise it is a deer.
I'm certainly scared stiff of doing it. I've never been tested and hope I never am.
I know that my life has been full of important decision making that has affected myself and others'. Some decisions have been excellent, and some have been shit. The shit decisions have mostly been in emotional situations or when I haven't allowed enough time to consider the causes or consequence. In day to day life time-forced decisions are often the worst we make, and if you chuck in confirmation bias and emotion we are going to stuff up occasionally.
No one is immune. None of us are infallible. Hopefully its this knowledge that keeps me and others safe.
Well in my opinion just be bloody careful make sure it's not you pulling the trigger.
When hunting in that area I heard guys coming through the bush. I got in behind as large a tree as possible and shouted out don't shoot!
Where blaze of some kind.
If you think it's that unsafe don't go.
Stay safe.
Shame it's happened on my old back door.
That's where I saw my first deer in the wild, on my very first trip. Took me three years to get my first. Patience girls and boys!
Patience there's no do over, it's not a video game.