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> With the advances in communications and Global Positioning System
> technologies, the answer is yes, in the (not necessarily long term) future you
> could give them a map showing where the elk are.  (Now, if we could only
> figure out how to persuade the elk to put on their own transmitters....)
 
Wow! The possibilities here are endless! Just imagine... no longer will the
big game hunter have to actually venture out into the cold and the snow to
actually try to find the elk! No longer the inconvenience of wandering around
looking for tracks and trails, nor the danger of getting caught in a
blizzard, or falling down a cliff! (Where will Reader's Digest get their
"true life adventures from then?). Instead, the intrepid hunter will be able
to sit with a portable receiver and track the elk to a convenient spot... or
better still, there surely has to be a market for a sort of mini-Cruise
missile, customised so that the hunter flies it via remote control from the
comfort of his/her hunting shack (or the nearest bar!). ;-)
 
Isn't it a bit like the ethical dilemma surrounding the creation of detailed
maps of rare bird or plant populations: useful for the researcher, but with
potential hazard for the actual biota if the data fall into the wrong hands?
Or would the transmitters have built-in fuzziness and error, like the GPS
does?
 
Darius Bartlett