So I posted this on my weblog:
Genesis 9:2-4 Ministries
It is absolutely ludicrous to believe that deer are sensitive to UV. The mammalian eye simply is not built to resolve visible light AND UV light-- not to the extent purported. Deer do not have magic eyes. They see a lot like we do, except they see less red and more blue and green.
This is the classic case of somebody creating a need and then attempting to fill it.
I have a couple of books on deer hunting that devote whole chapters to this anti-UV craze. I'm sure the authors themselves were just reporting what was available at the time. If you go back and look at it, this craze was typical of hunting gadgetry. Somebody comes out with a product that promises no-UV brighteners added to their clothes. Then somebody comes out with a product that will kill UV brighteners already on your clothes. Then . . .
The fact of the matter is that UV-brighteners exist, but they're put on clothes to make them whiter than white and brighter-than-bright-- not something you'd do to the average camo material. At the time UV brighteners became the big bugaboo for hunters, women's fashion was big on white stockings. UV sensitive dies were put on the fabric to keep them from looking dull in office lighting. As a result, when they got out in the sunlight they'd fluoresce to the point of annoyance. I've been in the woods now for 26 seasons. I've never seen anyone's hunting clothes with that kind of day-glo.
That is with one exception. Why is it we go to such lengths to kill UV on all our other clothes and then don fluorescent hunter orange hats and vests? Has anyone ever stopped to think how silly this all gets? I can see an orange hat at a distance of a mile or more when it gets into the sun. I'm sure the deer can too. They just don't pay any attention to it. To them, it's just a BRIGHT gray (?). What is bright gray?
So now I spray UV Killer on it-- somehow this magic potion dulls one dye (the UV brightener) without touching any other color. Hmmmm. Selective bleaching. There's a trick! It kills the UV dye on my camo clothes, but does not touch the florescence of my orange vest. How do it know? How do it know?
Back in the 20's the canned tuna industry was a tight race-- nobody had clear leadership in the field. All tuna was pink. Then Bumble Bee Tuna accidentally came up with a way to bleach tuna and turn it white. They didn't mean to. It just happened that way. Stuck with bleached tuna, somebody in the marketing department came up with an idea. Their ad campaign: "Bumble Bee Tuna-- Guaranteed not to turn pink!" Bumble Bee got on top and stayed there for years. I'll leave you to ponder that one.
Later in the day, I got this posted as a comment:
Dan said...
Dear Shaman,
If you believe your readers would be interested in a two sided discussion of U-V-Killer and the science of deer vision, I will try to engage in a conversation.
In any case it would be only fair to direct them to Atsko.com where the dvd and book and hundreds of references in juried periodicals are all available at no cost.
Sincerely,
Dan Gutting, Atsko Inc.
Mon Sep 22, 03:48:00 PM 2008
Dan:
I'd love to have that discussion. I've already been on Atsko.com I did what your demo video suggested and took a bunch of my camo and put it under a UV light. Zip. Nada.
Some of this stuff is 20 years old. Some is fairly recent. None of it fluoresced the way the camo your video suggested. What am I doing wrong?
I also tried a bunch of my other clothing, and only a small number of white and light blue shirts had the glow under my UV light.
Normally, I only use Sodium Bicarbonate to wash my hunting clothes. Could that have something to do with it?
Write soon. Write often.
