Bear Trouble? There’s a $2,000 Taser for That… [Taser]

Taser International , the Arizona based stungun maker, today launched a singular version of its often controversial nonlethal weapon: but it surely’s one geared for felling wild animals like grizzly bears, rather than police suspects or airport detainees.

The purpose of the device is to offer park rangers, hunters and hikers the facility to disable bears, elk and moose that harry their camp sites – perhaps giving them time to get to the protection of a car or trail lodge. As the weapon has been made waterproof (and even saltwater proof) even fishermen inside the wilds could have the likelihood to fell a bear, too.

Taser says that it designed the weapon – the Taser Wildlife Electronic Control Device (ECD) - in response to reports from wildlife managers who have often turned to regular tasers in extremis to deal with certain situations. The weapon is a variant of the firm’s three-shot semi-automatic pistol but with its voltage waveform modified to knock out large creatures.

” That is designed to incapacitate larger animals more effectively and safer than current animal control tools,” says Rick Smith, CEO. ” It’s going to help wildlife professionals protect wildlife by offering another tool to assist resolve human-animal conflicts.”

Taser cites a number of newspaper stories wherein people had to take advantage of regular tasers to subdue animals. Some rehearse the animal rights arguments against such use. The targets animals varied from elk to moose, deer and grizzlies.

This can be laughable if it wasn’t so obviously cruel. Taser has some extent – an overly small one – in that some bears’ lives perhaps saved if fishermen and other adventurers in grizzly country replace the firearms they usually use to defend themselves from attack with Tasers.

But research about bears shows that they’re rarely aggressive , and most threatening encounters are the avoidable result of human stupidity or bears’ desperation , as opposed to rogue animals inured to humans.

As for other animals – like bison – there’s a variety of visual evidence that it’s the folk who are the instigators, not the animals.

My worry? That this weapon, despite its high (almost $2000) price ticket, could encourage a new breed of ugly, empty-headed tourist behavior: will people approach animals they must circumvent knowing that if they’ve an animal-felling Taser they are able to break out with it?

Given the best way regular Tasers were misused – with their use sometimes a first resort and then being used to deliver repeated stun shocks to boot – it’s hard to determine how this hardware could encourage a neater relationship between people and animals.

Image: Bob Hallinen/Anchorage Daily News/MCT via Getty Images

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This post is tagged: electronic control, nonlethal weapon, semi automatic pistol, singular version, taser international, wildlife managers, wildlife professionals