Posted on 12/08/2002 6:23:21 AM PST by SJackson
MOSINEE -- So you missed your deer. Don't let a tempting buck at the side of the road lure you into sneaking a parting shot from the window of your truck. That swishing tail might hide a stinger.
Brian Wolslegel, Mosinee, claims that his robotic deer are so lifelike, they draw in poachers, amorous mates and territorial bucks just as effectively as the real thing. The only problem is, there is always a game warden close by.
Since 1995, when Mr. Wolslegel started Custom Robotic Wildlife, he has shipped his battery-powered decoys to 48 states and all the provinces of Canada. Most of those are being used by game wardens to educate the public to endangered species and put the squeeze on unscrupulous hunters.
Mr. Wolslegel credits his mentor, the late Gil Falkowski, with devising the idea of movable parts on whitetail decoys in the early 1990s. They tried a twitching ear, then attached it to the tail with a fishing line, "but they got broken with the game wardens throwing them in and out of their trucks," he said. His critters have evolved to the wildlife version of RoboCop, with custom-designed gearboxes and remote controllers that will turn the head, stamp a foot or make a turkey look like it's fanning its tail and strutting. He is even working through a design that will allow a deer decoy to blow steam from its nostrils in cold weather.
Custom Robotics is a small shop, with Mr. Wolslegel doing most of the production, along with a 16-year-old neighbor, Brad Menning. Mr. Wolslegel's wife, Kelly, does the bookwork.
In spite of its size, the company puts out about 300 decoys a year, marketing the product on the Internet and at wildlife management conventions around the country. The most popular product is whitetail deer, but he also creates robotic elk, moose, caribou, turkey, bear, lynx and fox.
"We do just about every animal there is," Mr. Wolslegel said. Hunters are getting savvier about decoy wildlife, but that doesn't mean that they don't fool a lot of people a lot of the time. Wardens at Seeley Lake, Mont., had to stop a car full of visitors from throwing stones at a grizzly bear decoy. They were trying to get it to move. There are also plenty of decoys that come back for repair after being shot repeatedly by the same hunter. "There are a million stories out there," Mr. Wolslegel said. "People running them over with their cars when they get mad. People trying to get out and shoo the deer away so it won't run across the road."
Realism starts with the foam form, created by freezing a skinned animal carcass in the desired position and making a rubber cast of it. The rubber is than used to create a fiberglass mold, which in turn is used to produce the foam forms.
Mr. Wolslegel covers each form with the appropriate hide, which he glues into place. Movable body parts are cut free and fitted with gearbox and battery packs. Then the whole thing is put back together with glass eyes, steel rods in place of the lower legs and no fancy finish work.
"The wardens will usually put these in the brush, so there'll be grass and stuff covering the legs. If it's too perfect, a guy's going to wonder why it looks so pretty."
A completed deer weighs about 21 pounds and costs about $1,000 with shipping. Mr. Wolslegel said that he figures an average whitetail decoy can bring in $30,000 in fines over its lifetime, "It's a heck of an investment." Local hunters provide deer hides, and more unusual pelts are shipped to his shop by game wardens in other states. Mr. Wolslegel said turkey has become a huge part of the business recently, but it doesn't offer much of a profit margin.
"It takes me the same amount of time to do a turkey as it takes to do two deer," he said, "but you can't charge them double."
He cautions his buyers to place the turkeys in protected areas.
"One shot at the wrong angle, and they're all done." Mr. Wolslegel said he has experimented with different ways to bulletproof his bigger animals, but found that a direct hit doesn't usually do a great deal of damage. "Wardens will duct tape them, weld them, whatever they need," he said.
The gearbox, which is about the size of a one-pound cottage cheese carton, is the only part that can be blasted to oblivion. "We just let the bullet go through and do its damage, which is nice for me, because I've also got a parts business here," he laughed. Mr. Wolslegel said it's difficult for state officials to get competitive bids on the decoys, because he is the only one in the country making them.
"Actually, the wardens themselves are my biggest competition," he said. "They try to make them themselves, using car window motors to make the heads go. Sometimes they start them up and the head starts spinning around, which really freaks the hunters out." His biggest customers are on the east and west coast where hunting laws support the use of decoys for law enforcement.
"Wisconsin is not a good state for decoys," he said. "We do very little business here. It's a huge hunting state, but a terrible state for the laws. If you shoot a deer in Wisconsin, out of season or at night, it's a $2,000 fine and you lose your gun. Here, the law doesn't recognize the decoy as a live animal, so attorneys can get around that very easily by playing with those phrases in the law, and you end up with a $300 or $400 fine."
"In Alaska, it's almost worse to shoot one of their moose or elk decoys than to be caught with a carload of drugs," he added.
Although Mr. Wolslegel has a secure corner on the robotic decoy market, he is planning to expand his business into malls and wildlife displays for pleasure, and maybe even a little law enforcement.
His current project is a Christmas display at Cedar Creek Mall near Schofield where youngsters coming to visit Santa will walk through a winter wonderland of animated deer, fox, coyote and turkey.
He also has robotic wildlife in a Christmas display at Clifton Mills, a reenactment village in Clifton, Ohio, and visitors to the Marshfield Wal-Mart will find one of his whitetails featured in the hunting department. "I've been playing around with the idea of putting a camera behind the deer's eyes for loss prevention," he said.
Not only would the animal draw buyers to a display, but it would also keep an eye out for shoplifters. "They know all about the hidden cameras in the globes, and like that, but they're not looking at something that's on the floor and looking right at them." If you're in the market for a robotic deer in your back yard, Mr. Wolslegel can arrange that as well.
"I might sell 50 deer at a convention to wardens, but at one show, I had three guys walk up to me who don't bow hunt and said it was the coolest thing they had ever seen, and bought them to put in their yards," he said. "I sold one to a guy who was goofing around with his neighbor. He was going to take it out to the guy's tree stand with a marine battery, and it would be standing there when the sun came up in the morning."
Custom Wildlife Robotics has been featured in Petersen's Hunting, Bow and Arrow Hunting and Deer and Deer Hunting magazines. ABC's Prime Time television show did a segment last year, appropriately titled "Bambi's Revenge."
In my area here in NW Indiana, the Bambi issue is a major battle between the Bambi lovers who feed and encourage them and those of us who worry everyday we drive down the highway. I saw 5 Bambis grazing along the side of the highway on my way home from work yesterday. Thankfully they were grazing and not running across the road.
I love the wild critters but the deer population is out of control and something needs to be done. This over population is bad for humans and the deer.
I wonder what the game warden would do if I used a foam rubber gun and a gunshot recording to hunt his fake deer ? Nooooo I'm not gonna try it :o)
All joking aside there are some real turds in the hunting punchbowl that cause some of this and they are on "both" sides of the law. If hunting is not for food for ones table or conservation of wildlife resourses then I consider it a crime anyway.
Stay Safe !
I suppose it's an example of a guy putting an embarassing episode behind him.
As the say out west about their nuisance critters:
It makes me wonder if some sort of "buck fever" irrationality went to work when the guys involved saw the decoys. Not to excuse them though, they deserved to get caught and they deserved the fine, which was about $1000 at the time.
a sheep decoy, for the dems to lure voters
and the fox/coyote decoys
Oh, I don't know about that. I had a dumb doe do exactly that, last night! Silouetted on the southern hilltop, 200 yds off a road, in a empty beanfield...not only that, she didn't even flinch when a road hunter drove past, or when 2 shots got cracked off at her! She just kept on strolling and browsing. (not a robo-bambi)
LOL!
Some guy over on the FiringLine.com forum asked a question about hunting with a paintball gun! He said that he didn't want to kill a deer - just mark it! He just wanted to "test his skills". After being made fun of for many replies, he was warned that it wouldn't be a good idea, because the animal-rights wackos would probably charge him with animal cruelty.
Stay Safe !
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