grumpy
New member
Had a conversation the other day with several of my hunting buddies about how animals see color. Of course, everyone has thier own belief on this subject. But, some recent situations took this conversation in some uncharted areas.
This particular canversation started with the usual, but the question soon came up about using red lenses on lights for night hunting. Just about everyone there said they used them and they all said most animals didn't react to a red light the same way they did to a standard light. So I posed the question; if they can't see red at night, can they see it during the day? To which no one had an answer. So I pose this question to the experts here.
The other question that came up was due to some horseplay on our part with a laser bore sighter and our cats. We would run the red dot from the laser across the floor and the cats would go crazy trying to catch it. We then tried it out on the dog, mine didn't react, but the neigbors dog reacted the same way the cats did. Which brings us back to the original question and adds another one, How can the see this red light and yet not react to it at night?
A test was planned and yesterday a couple of us went out to call coyotes to see if they would react to the laser bore sighter if it was pointed in front of them. Long story short, no coyotes, but one young bobcat that reacted exactly like the domestic house cats and completely lost all caution while it tried to catch the red dot.
Now I'm not new at calling at night by any means, but I have called in everything from grey fox, red fox, coyotes, bobcats and even bear at night with little or no response to the red light we shined on them. Can they or can they not see the color red at night? If not, why have these animals reacted to the red light from the bore sighter with such abandon? Obviously I need to see a coyote react to this, and we are planning another trip, but we could have easily killed that bobcat if we had chose to.
Any ideas or thought on this subject?
This particular canversation started with the usual, but the question soon came up about using red lenses on lights for night hunting. Just about everyone there said they used them and they all said most animals didn't react to a red light the same way they did to a standard light. So I posed the question; if they can't see red at night, can they see it during the day? To which no one had an answer. So I pose this question to the experts here.
The other question that came up was due to some horseplay on our part with a laser bore sighter and our cats. We would run the red dot from the laser across the floor and the cats would go crazy trying to catch it. We then tried it out on the dog, mine didn't react, but the neigbors dog reacted the same way the cats did. Which brings us back to the original question and adds another one, How can the see this red light and yet not react to it at night?
A test was planned and yesterday a couple of us went out to call coyotes to see if they would react to the laser bore sighter if it was pointed in front of them. Long story short, no coyotes, but one young bobcat that reacted exactly like the domestic house cats and completely lost all caution while it tried to catch the red dot.
Now I'm not new at calling at night by any means, but I have called in everything from grey fox, red fox, coyotes, bobcats and even bear at night with little or no response to the red light we shined on them. Can they or can they not see the color red at night? If not, why have these animals reacted to the red light from the bore sighter with such abandon? Obviously I need to see a coyote react to this, and we are planning another trip, but we could have easily killed that bobcat if we had chose to.
Any ideas or thought on this subject?