ARROW LETHALITY
Part
I: Introduction - The Need for Knowledge
BY
Dr. Ed Ashby
Volumes of data on
terminal ballistics (what happens from the moment of impact) have been written
for every conceivable rifle / bullet combination in existence. Very little such information exist for
archery equipment.
In today's hunting world,
where politics frequently affects hunting opportunities more than game
populations do, such information becomes highly important. Many would see all hunting, of all forms,
banned world-wide. Logic and factual
information will never sway their opinion.
Factual information, leading to sound hunting policies that support
sustainable utilization of the renewable resource through the humane taking of
surplus game can, however, do much to influence the majority of the population,
those who are neither pro nor anti-hunting.
Bowhunting has long been a
target of the anti-hunting movement. It
has been portrayed as inhumane and ineffective. Pictures of animals riddled with arrows escaping to die a
lingering death are depicted by the devoted anti-hunter. The only defence against such false
information is verifiable facts, yet little has been done to collect and
disseminate the information needed by bowhunters to permit them to make wise
choices in equipment and techniques used to humanely take game. The end result has been a proliferation of
equipment and misinformation which, rather than making bowhunting more
effective, has actually produced an increase in the wounding rate of game in
many instances. Such mistakes by the
bowhunting public plays directly into the hands of the anti-hunters.
Through this series of
articles we will look at what information, based on empirical data, is
currently available. Much of what is
presented here is from research in which I have been personally involved. Every project with which I have been
associated has been independent of any funding or subsidy by any manufacturer,
distributor or retailer of archery equipment.
All, save the Natal Study, have been personally funded.
The Natal Study was
conducted under the auspices of the Natal Parks Board of South Africa. I do not hold, nor have I ever held, any
affiliation with any archery company, manufacturer or firm. All the following research information has
appeared in detailed form in various publications in the U.S., Australia and
Europe. Much has been retested and
verified by other independent researchers in the field of wildlife
management. Still more awaits independent
verification.
Bowhunting remains under
close scrutiny in Africa (as elsewhere).
Least decision makers be forced to rely on incidental information only,
as much hard data as possible must be made available. The purpose of presenting this information is to disseminate as
widely as possible what information I have available. All available information, favorable and unfavorable, needs to be
publicly available to individual bowhunters, the general public, government
officials, and other researchers. This
permits others to examine and experiment with the information and opens
channels of thought and communication for further investigation and formes a
basis for making informed decisions, both individually and collectively.
The question of broadhead
effectiveness and the lethality of broadhead tipped arrows has become almost an
obsession with me through the years. As
I long ago discovered, it is a highly complex and often perplexing study. To this study I have devoted many years and
significant personal funds. My
professional training has proved of great value in the investigation of wound
channels. Being in addition to a
bowhunter, a hunter with firearms, I have also made detailed study of wound
channels from various bullets from many calibers of rifles and handguns. This has helped form a basis of comparison.
Several decades ago, when
I first began bowhunting, it was a rare occasion when any bowhunter in our camp
hit a big game animal and failed to recover it. As the years went by, I felt that the number of animals being hit
by bowhunters and not recovered was escalating. Eventually I became certain that the wounding rate was
increasing. Why? What was causing this increase in hit and
lost game? The question intrigued
me. As I delved into the subject, I
found that researchers in the field of wildlife management had already detected
the same trend (See Graph XV and "Collateral Data" Table). It was not my imagination.
All the researchers agreed
that it was happening, a higher percentage of animals were being hit and lost
as more bowhunters took to the field, but no one was investigating why
it was happening. Was it simply a
problem of inept hunters taking up bowhunting or could there be other factors
at work that were causing the increase in wounding rates?
By a stroke of sheer luck,
I was given a chance to participate in the bowhunting research being conducted
by the Natal Parks Board. I was most
interested in investigating just what factors affected the lethality of an
individual hit with a broadhead tipped arrow.
The following series of articles will present analysis from the data
which I have accumulated over the past twelve years. That data, by now, reflects the detailed information from several
hundred arrow shots on real game animals, not on artificial media intended to
simulate various animal tissues. It is,
to the best of my knowledge, the largest data base of its type in existence.
The following articles
will contain many verified facts and numerous inferences (things suggested by
the data, but not verifiable at a statistically significant level). There will also be some personal opinions
and recommendations (which I will endeavor to identify as such). Some may not agree will all inferences,
opinions and recommendations presented.
They are, however, not drawn from thin air. Rather, they are based on the dissection, recording, detailed
study and analysis of hundreds of big game animals killed with bow and
arrow. More importantly, they
reflect the examination of a great number of arrow wounds that failed to kill.
Examination of hits
which failed to kill have proved of far greater value than information from
killing shots. On the shots that did kill, everything went
right. On ones that failed to kill,
something was at fault. The non-lethal
hits are the ones that reveal the causes of the failure to kill. The opportunity to examine large numbers of
'failed' hits came during the Natal Broadhead Study.
From the outset, let me
apologize to the reader for the lengthy and technical nature of these
articles. While every effort has been
made to condense the extensive information while maintaining somewhat of a
'readable' format, it is impossible to adequately present such information
without the supporting data. Throughout
this series, several graphics representing the research data will be
presented. The numbering of these
graphics may not always appear to be in a logical order, but they are drawn
directly from the more detailed and comprehensive formal papers on the
research.
The accompanying
"Collateral Research Data" from other researchers will prove most
interesting when compared to the results from the Natal Study (which predated
all the 'collateral data' save the historical wounding rates). They should be retained by the reader for
reference during the reading of Part II: Broadheads - The Natal Study. Part II of this series deals with the
measured effectiveness of various broadheads, examines the lethality of shots
by hit location, and looks at some other factors which surfaced during the
Natal Study.
Part III will deal with
the historical development of much of the equipment in use today, and why
'progress' does not always produce superior results. It will also briefly summarize the results of the Natal Study and
include some personal recommendations on things that do work.
Part IV of this series is
devoted to a brief discussion of the laws of physics which affect arrow
penetration. While a 'dry' subject, a
rudimentary understanding of the factors which affect arrow penetration, and
how they affect it, is necessary to understand the material presented in Part V
of the series.
The final article in this
series, Part V, will deal with the most current project, a methodology for
predicting the penetration of one arrow relative to another on real
tissues. This concept, which I have
named the "Tissue Penetration Index" or TPI, is in a fledgling stage,
but the initial field testing of the theory on Cape Buffalo has been most
encouraging.
It is my fervent hope that
this series will prove of interest to some of the readers, and hopefully will
intrigue some to the degree that they also begin to delve into such
research. A rare opportunity exist in
Africa to take the leading role in developing definitive information that could
lead to significant advances in our understanding of arrow and broadhead
effectiveness. The end result could be
not only to make all of us better, more skilled and more humane bowhunters, it
may well provide some protection from the constant onslaught all hunters, and
especially bowhunters, face from the anti-hunting community and help to
preserve bowhunting as a viable, and socially acceptable, form of hunting.
COLLATERAL RESEARCH DATA
Historical Wounding
Rate:
de Boer: Waste in the Woods, Wisconsin
Conservation Bulletin #22, 1957 - 7% wounding rate for bowhunted whitetails.
Stormer, et
al Hunter Inflicted Wounding on White
Tailed Deer, Wildlife Society Bulletin #7 (1), 1979 - 17% to 32% wounding
rate for bowhunted deer over a four year study period in Indiana.
Contemporary Wounding
Rate Research:
R. W. Aho -
Michigan
Dept. of Natural Resources: 1.4 wounded deer for each deer killed.
Horace Gore-
Whitetail
Project Director, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department: One deer wounded for
each deer killed.
Survey by Deer
& Deer Hunting Magazine:
(N
= 2,103): 1.13 deer wounded for each deer killed.
Gayle
Wescott-
Michigan
State University: Observed one deer wounded for each deer killed (N=51 wounded,
N=51 Killed).
"Wounded
Deer Behavior", Deer & Deer Hunting, August, 1990:
-
"This 1:1 ratio for wounded deer to deer killed continues to surface in
the hunting literature".
* The author
is aware of the recent "Fort Ripley Study" in Minnesota which
indicated a much lower wounding / loss rate for bowhunted whitetail deer in
Minnesota. The abrupt contradiction of
all other recent research on wounding-loss rates and the methodology employed
in this study leads the author to wonder how accurately it reflects the
wounding / loss rate under 'free range' conditions. Valid research is repeatable, and the author reserves judgement
on this study until further independent research can verify the results.
COLLATERAL RESEARCH DATA
(Cont.)
Associated Data:
Horace Gore:
-
"unless a relatively low exit wound in thorax hits exist, most bleeding is
internal, resulting in a poor blood trail".
-
Gore argues that "little data exist with regard to broadhead penetration
on a live deer. We know how broadheads
penetrate non-organic material such as ethafoam, styrofoam, and wood, but not
wild animals in real hunting situations".
Deer Search,
Inc.:
-
"chest hits in which an arrow only penetrates one lung presents very
difficult tracking problems".
-
"High lung-shots are difficult to track even with a dog, especially if no
exit wound exist".
Shot Placement
Gayle
Wescott:
-
"56% of hits on broadside shots resulted in unrecovered deer".
-
"81% of quartering away shots resulted in retrieval of the animal".
Researchers
in Wisconsin:
-
"71% to 82% of all shots taken missed".
Researchers
in Michigan:
-
"78% of all shots taken missed".
Horace Gore:
-
concluded that "shot placement is, for all practical purposes,
random".
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Ed Ashby is an avid
hunter with both gun and bow. He began
bowhunting big game in 1958 and has had the opportunity to meet and hunt with
many of the great bowhunters of the past decades - Howard Hill, Ben Pearson, and Fred Bear. He has hunted extensively in North America
and Africa and has shot several hundreds of animals with bow and arrow, from
small game to white rhinos. His
favorite longbow, a 94# bamboo bow he built in 1980, alone has accounted for
over 300 big-game animals.
With personal bowhunting
experiences which spans from instinctive shooting with self-wood longbows and
cedar arrows through high energy cam bows and over-draw compounds with carbon
arrows, sights and releases (and back again, to his favored longbows with
compressed wood arrows), Dr. Ashby has a wealth of bowhunting experiences to
draw from. This is supplemented by an
enormous data base, which he has carefully collected over the years, on the
effectiveness of various bowhunting equipment "in the game field".
In 1985, Dr. Ashby
conducted, in Natal Provence, South Africa, what is still the most extensive
formal evaluation of broadhead performance on game animals. His research data is used by several of the
U.S. States and foreign countries in hunter education programs. He is the author of numerous technical
hunting-related articles that have been published in the U.S. and
internationally.
In addition to his
technical publications, Dr. Ashby writes a feature column for Archery Action
with Outdoor Connections, Australia's leading archery publication, under
the banner of "More Ramblings by the Old Derelict Bowhunter".
In 1994, Dr. Ashby retired
from the U.S. Public Health Service and moved to Africa to enjoy the
continent's spectacular hunting and to help expand the bowhunting opportunities
in that region. He now considers himself
as a "full time bush-bum".