If you know anything about hunting at night, you are well aware that taking it to the extreme can leave you looking like a Navy Seal. Those who go all out may be wearing sophisticated night vision goggles and carrying an assault rifle with highly sophisticated night vision or thermal devices. Some even go as far as installing a suppressor on their rifle.
All those gadgets can be extremely expensive and some may require a lot of legal related hassle, but for the most passionate night hunter, it’s worth it. If you are one of these diehards, you have probably wondered if you could take it one step further and add a drone to your list of gadgets.
So, can you use a drone for night hunting? Yes, you can use a drone to assist you in hunting at night, but there are many regulations as well as other limitations you should keep in mind.
This article discusses some of the most relevant federal laws and regulations in the United States and some of the non-legal limitations hunters may face when using drones.
Some Drone Regulations Relevant to Hunters
Like most things, before you dive into it, it’s always best to know the applicable legal restrictions. Drones are highly regulated, both at the federal and state level. While each state may have its own regulations over drones, the federal rules alone substantially restrict legal drone use for hunting purposes.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is relatively strict when it comes to drone use. You should always check the latest regulations before doing anything drone related, but here are a few of the regulations that may limit the use of drones for hunting.
Be advised that this is not legal advice. Everything in this article is pulled directly from the FAA website and community-based organizations’ websites. You have sole responsibility of reading and interpreting all applicable federal and state regulations or other regulations relevant to your country before operating a drone.
Cannot Fly Them Out of Visual-Line-of-Sight
The FAA provides regulations for both recreational and commercial drone use. However, regardless of the purpose for using your drone, the FAA holds that you must only operate a drone within your visual-line-of-sight. (Source).
Some may consider this a critical limitation in terms of drone use for hunting. However, having an aerial view of a series of fields or other open spaces could still be very beneficial to hog hunters wanting to see areas that are impossible from the ground. After all, you can still see a drone at a relatively far distance.
Use of Lights for Night Flying
In recent years, there’s been much debate as to whether hobbyists could legally fly drones at night. The official regulations do not seem to clearly answer this question, but the FAA states that under the Special Rule for Model Aircraft, one requirement for hobbyists is to “[f]ollow community-based safety guidelines and fly within the programming of a nationwide community-based organization.” (Source).
Again, that does not mention anything about flying at night, but two reputable and well known community-based organizations, the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) and the Drone User Group Network, both require the use of lights that are bright enough to give the user a clear view of the drone at all times for night flying.
So, it seems that recreational drone use at night is permissible as long as you utilize the proper lighting systems. But what does that mean for night hunters? Intuitively, you might think the lighting systems would scare the animals you wish to observe. But considering the height at which drones can fly, these lights likely wouldn’t spook most animals.
Drones would be most helpful for hog hunters over any other animal in most situations. Luckily, a hog’s eyesight is poor relative to many other animals. Further, since the light systems do not shine a beam down to land, the animals likely wouldn’t even notice anyway.
In fact, having a good lighting system on your drone could actually give you an advantage over using it during the day. The lights in the night sky would allow you to maintain an accurate line-of-sight of your drone, which would allow you to fly it further while keeping a good eye on it.
Again, the federal regulations are not the only rules you must consider, and these are only two of the things you must do to be compliant with federal rules. States have their own rules applying to drones in general and wildlife agencies may have regulations applicable to drones and hunting, specifically. So always stay up to date on all laws and regulations from all levels of government.
Feasibility of Using Drones for Night Hunting Purposes
There are several regulatory limitations with using drones for hunting purposes, which we have discussed to an extent. But putting those things aside, are drones even feasible for hunting use? This section will discuss some of the potential advantages of using a drone as well as some of the limitations that come with them which may make them more trouble than what they’re worth in some situations.
Potential Advantages
Obviously, the ability to get an aerial view of your location provides a great advantage for determining the location of your target. Flying a drone around for the purpose of spotting game would be most helpful for hog hunters.
Often, landowners allow people to hunt on their property, or hunt themselves, for the purpose of controlling the wild hog population as they can be detrimental to property. Hogs are notorious for rooting up fields and often they run in large packs.
It would be very difficult to use a drone in wooded areas, but if you are hunting large, open fields, a drone might provide some benefits. If the area you are hunting has several fields, you could use a drone to fly over the various fields to determine whether the hogs had chosen a different field than the one in which you’re currently set up. This could eliminate a lot of wasted time from sitting in one field while the hogs are in another.
This might be useful for stalking hogs as well. You could fly over the fields, locate the hogs, and use the information to make a strategic stalk.
Limitations and Disadvantages
As with anything, there are limitations when it comes to using drones for hunting purposes. Some of the most significant limitations and negative factors include (1) they are difficult to navigate through wooded areas; (2) they are loud; and (3) high-quality drones are expensive.
- Difficult to Navigate Through Trees
One limitation of using drones for hunting purposes is that they are very difficult to navigate through wooded areas, and flying them above the trees is largely self-defeating because you cannot utilize the camera to see through the brush; thermal cameras mitigates this problem to an extent but does not completely remedy it.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the object avoidance features on drones does not work properly at night, so you may have to fly with it disabled. All of this limits their use almost exclusively to open fields. Even then, you should make sure you are well aware of your surroundings before flying at night.
- They are Noisy
The next issue is the noise drones make. As technology advances, drones are becoming quieter, but even the quietest of them are still relatively loud. Some of the larger, more capable ones are quite noisy. These can be heard about as well as normal conversation level talking even at 100 plus feet in the air.
With the right camera, you could fly pretty high and still see well enough for spotting purposes. So flying high may keep the noise low enough to not alert animals like wild hogs too much. Just be sure to not fly higher than is legally permissible.
- Drones are Expensive
If you know much about night hunting, you know that you can easily spend thousands of dollars on night vision or thermal devices and other weapon accessories. Drones are no different. Depending on the drone’s specifications, they can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
In general, a drone with significant range and battery life capability will set you back a pretty penny. Additionally, thermal or other camera upgrades can run in the thousands of dollars.
Is Drone Use for Hunting Ethical?
Once you get past the strict regulations governing drone use, understand the limitations accompanying drones, and get over the shock of the price tag on some of them, you may ask one final question – is using drones for hunting ethical?
It’s hard to answer any question of ethics or morality with a straightforward answer. There are many normative ethical theories as well as assumptions on which the answer may depend. However, there are different questions to be asked when it comes to hunting ethics – for example, for what purpose is it acceptable to kill animals, and does the intent behind the hunter’s motivation for doing so matter?
Those are all valid questions, but they are irrelevant to the use of drones. The question of whether using drones for hunting is ethical relates to the tools and equipment humans use. For example, is it ethical to use a high-powered rifle to kill an animal from a distance so far away that renders the animal completely unaware of the hunter’s presence?
Those types of questions rest largely on fairness – whether it’s “a fair chase” between the hunter and the prey. Some argue against using technology for hunting. In fact, some hunters refuse to use night vision or thermal devices when night hunting because they believe it gives them an unfair advantage.
Those are reasonable arguments, but when taken to their logical extreme it seems that hunters would have to use their bare hands or at least handheld tools to kill their targets. Where do you draw the line in terms of technology?
Firearms do not sound like sophisticated technology anymore, but guns provide advantages well beyond any natural, physical abilities any animal may have over a human. A proponent of these arguments may challenge that unless hunters are willing to at least go back to primitive weapons, any restrictions on the types of technology one can use is completely arbitrary and meaningless.
Regardless of your conclusion, there are some good fairness arguments against the use of drones for hunting in terms of ethics. However, when it comes to night hunting – especially for wild hogs which is probably the only animal for which drone use would be realistically feasible – and questions of “level playing field” or fairness is not a concern because much of the time the goal is population control.
Indeed, much of the most hard-core night hunters who are willing to invest in the most advanced technology is trying to eliminate as many hogs as possible for the purpose of controlling the population. Therefore, questions of ethics may not be as prioritized as they are when applied to hunting for sport. When discussing utilizing a drone within these parameters, it seems more acceptable than when speaking strictly about hunting for sport.
Final Thoughts
If you’re serious about night hunting, you probably have or plan to invest in some highly sophisticated technology. A drone may be another addition to the list of fancy gadgets that will keep you skinning wild hogs for hours.
But remember, they are expensive and you may face some serious limitations in some settings. Finally, are they ethical? Maybe not if you’re chasing an elk or moose. But when it comes to controlling wild hogs, it’s largely a free for all.
Just keep in mind that drones can be dangerous if not operated properly. Always keep up to date on the relevant regulations and ensure you have the proper accessories, and you can take your night hunting adventures to a whole new level.