I came across this article today off the AP.
Olympia, Wash. (AP) — Pamela Almli was less than an hour into a hike on the popular Sauk Mountain Trail in Skagit County when she was killed by a 14-year-old hunter who thought she was a bear.
The Aug. 2 accident was a rarity – Almli was the first non-hunter killed by a hunter in Washington in more than 25 years – but lawmakers are considering a handful of ways to increase outdoor safety.
One proposal would reinstate a law that hunters under 14 be accompanied by an experienced adult. The shooter in Almli’s death was hunting with his 16-year-old brother.
Now this proposal is great in my opinion, but I don't think that it is enough. I understand that hunters have the right to be in certain areas, but I do like the second proposal which states that all outdoors people in hunting areas have to wear hunters orange clothing. That includes hunters and non-hunters.
The third proposal is to make the minimum age for hunting 16.
Hikers groups, meanwhile, oppose any “hiker’s orange” requirement.
“Are you really going to require every single hiker and every tourist who visits Mt. Baker Snoqualmie Forrest to wear hunter orange?” asked Andrew Engelson, editor of Washington Trails magazine.
Now she does have a point. So now the question is, where does the problem start? And how do we prevent future, unnecessary deaths?
I think about the only way to make these events impossible is to close certain areas to hikers. That is if they don't want to wear the orange during hunting season. I know that when I would go camping in possible hunting areas I would always wear orange. It wasn't a big deal and the bright sweatshirts are under $20. Add a $5 hat to that and now I'm sure I won't get mistaken for a bear.
I also like the idea to make hunters that are minors go out with an experienced adult. I think that would help to increase the safety of the hunters themselves. A 14 and a 16 year old kids don't need to be hunting by themselves.
It's absolutely terrible what happened to Pamela Almli. I know that Just South of North gets visited by the occasional hunter and outdoors person thanks to our friends over at the Outdoor Bloggers Summit. Since you people are the ones with experience in hunting and hunting safety, what are your thoughts on this. How can law makers in Washington State prevent this type of event from occurring in the future? And what do you think should be the minimum hunting age?
That's a tragedy, and the real question becomes why the hunter was taking brush shots. First thing in hunters' safety NEVER take a shot at something that you cant see. This drives me crazy, why the hell are they taking shots at noise and do they even look down their scope. It seems to me that hunting accident penalties need to be tougher so people don't go taking pot shots in the dark
ReplyDeleteElementary gun safety should have kept that kid from shooting. I wrote a post about this incident just after it happened and I asked who was responsible for preventing accidents like this. The answer I came up with was everyone. The kid should have been hunting with a responsible adult. The kid should have been trained well enough to ensure that he verified his shot. The hiker should have worn a bright color and should have made identifiable noise that clearly marked her as human. The state should have posted the trails so hikers would know hunters were near.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there's no easy answer to this.