19 Oct You may be killing more than just animals during hunting season
With hunting season quickly approaching, the avid hunters among us are looking forward to the end of October when they can begin to partake in their favourite fall pastime. When preparing for a hunting trip, many hunters carefully pack their equipment but forget one essential item: their hearing protection.
A single shot of a hunting rifle is loud enough (up to 140 dB) to do permanent damage to your hearing. This can manifest as a constant ringing in your ears, decreased hearing, or both. Permanent damage can occur with a single shot, and certainly continues to accumulate with each subsequent shot.
Regardless of age or hearing status, every hunter should protect their ears. Ear plugs or ear muffs should be worn at all times, with a noise reduction rating (found on the packaging) of at least 25 dB. If your hearing is normal, you will still be able to communicate with the earplugs in. If you find sounds are muffled when wearing hearing protection, there are electronic protection systems that actually amplify low level sounds around you (animal movement, voices, etc) but limit/decrease loud sounds around you (e.g. firearms). Also available are customer filtered earplugs which allow speech and environmental sounds to be heard while protecting your ears from loud instense sound, preventing Noise Induced damage.
Remember: no pastime is worth having irreversible, adverse effects on your body. Take the steps to enjoy hunting and protect your hearing at the same time.
When you are hunting animals, make sure you are not hunting down your ears too. Contact 482-2222 to schedule a hearing protection consultation.
