Is bowhunting a more effective hunting technique than firearms hunting?
No. Firearms hunting is the most efficient method of killing deer. Bowhunting is an extremely inefficient way of killing deer and has a crippling rate of 40%-60% (deer wounded but not killed). This is because bowhunting is an extremely exacting sport. According to a report on bowhunting that summarizes 24 studies on bowhunting from across the country, “Unlike bullets, arrows loop (or ‘rainbow’). Whereas a gun hunter takes dead aim at an animal, an archer must estimate the distance from the target and adjust the shot to compensate for the rainbow trajectory of the arrow. Animals commonly jump the string on hearing the release of the arrow—they reflexively move some distance before the arrow reaches them from wherever they were at the time of the shot. According to experts, animals can completely evade an arrow at a distance of 15 to less than 20 yards, which means they can also partially evade the arrow and become wounded.
