New Type of Hunter Targets Oregon

Ever the eager hunters, Ken Delp and Beverly Rushing will head out into the wilds this fall in search of big game. It doesn’t matter that they can’t see their prey, or the rifle they use to shoot it.

Delp and Rushing are among 57 legally blind holders of special permits to hunt, courtesy of Oregon’s designated-shooter law.

Delp didn’t know what to do when he began to go blind last year.

“Hunting has been my life,” the 81-year-old retired carpenter said. He can still see marginally. But in the field he relies on help from his neighbor, Ed Reeves.

“I’m happy to help him stay in the woods where he likes to be,” Reeves said.

“It means everything to me,” Delp said.

Rushing, 68, prefers her husband to shoot for her. She experiences the hunt by hanging onto the revolver on his hip as her walking guide.

As president of the Oregon Council of the Blind, she has been a principal supporter of the designated-shooter rule.

“I’ve sat in camp so many times since I was a child, while all the others had licenses and their husbands went out and killed their deer for them,” Rushing said. “I never felt it was right. Now it’s legal.”

Blind hunting is not new in Oregon. Blind persons received permits well before the designated-shooter law took effect in 1997.

Yet officials and hunters say the new rules create safer conditions.

Under the designated-shooter law, legally blind hunters may be assisted in shooting or may designate a companion to shoot. Designated shooters may assist on a hunt without possessing a big-game hunt tag. They must have a valid hunting license, however, as well as the required special stamps and federal permits.

The permit requires a physician’s confirmation that the blind person has central vision no better than 20/200 in the best eye with the best correction, or is limited to a field of vision no wider than 20 degrees.

“I don’t think many people realize you can be out there in the woods and be totally, legally blind,” said Dr. Andrea Tongue, an ophthalmologist.

Tongue said she supports the new law but thinks it doesn’t go far enough. All hunters, like drivers, should be required to take vision tests, she said.

“I’d like to know that the people who have control of a gun have the visual ability to know what it is they’re shooting at,” she said.

Mike Bickler, supervisor of hunter safety and education programs for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said Tongue has a point about failing eyesight.

“No state in the United States that I’m aware of has analyzed hunting accidents with respect to vision,” Bickler said.

Oregon state Sen. Bill Fisher (R-Roseburg) helped shepherd the law through the Senate. Fisher, who has a blind daughter, said the issue of requiring hunters to have reasonable sight wasn’t raised in the Legislature. But he added that it didn’t need to be.

“It has been more a matter of judgment than eyesight when it comes to hunting accidents I’ve read about,” he said.

“If they’re going to come up with something to limit hunters, I’d rather see them have some sort of judgment performance.”

Meanwhile, blind hunters in Oregon are having a good time this fall with their companions in the field.

Ken Johnston, 42, had his three-point black-tailed buck shot for him by a designated shooter.

“I do my part,” Johnston said. “I skin and dress them.”

Richard Hunteman, 78, a retired electronics technician, only wants assistance to get into the field and find the deer. Although legally blind, he said he can see well enough to shoot through a high-powered telescope.

“I’m not going to ask anyone to shoot it, for the life of me,” he said. “I’m too much of a hunter, and I want to do it on my own.”