Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 11, 1993 TAG: 9303110139
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From staff reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ITT LOOKS TO CIVILIANS FOR GOGGLE SALES; POLICE LOOK ASKANCE
Soldiers and police officers used to be about the only people who could get their eyes on a pair of night-vision goggles.But if ITT - looking for a civilian market to make up for defense cutbacks - has its way, night-vision goggles soon might be as common as a pair of binoculars with boaters and bird-watchers.
Of course, even the most expensive pair of binoculars can't do what night-vision goggles can. That's what excites some outdoor buffs - and worries some law-enforcement officials.
Some law enforcement agencies in Western Virginia have been using night-vision equipment for some time.
In the mid-1980s, for example, ITT lent night-vision goggles to state police searching for the killers of Sgt. Jim Biggs, who died after being shot along Interstate 64 in Alleghany County.
They've been used by the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, too. "During trout preseason - after streams have been stocked but before fishing season opens - we've used them very effectively to monitor activity on the banks," said Capt. John Haslep of the game department.
Night-vision devices are already available to the public, according to Roanoke Police Maj. Don Shields, who supervises patrol officers.
"You can get any police supply catalog and you'll see a number of these devices," Shields said. "They keep improving them and refining them."
Now, though, as ITT more aggressively markets its products - the company had a display booth at the Roanoke Boat Show earlier this month - police worry that the goggles could present problems.
"If they are made available to the general public," said Capt. Charlie Compton of the Virginia State Police in Salem, "the criminal element is going to take advantage of the technology just like they do scanners. I've got mixed feelings on it. I have some concerns that criminals will use it to circumvent apprehension and detection."
Haslep worries about the goggles becoming common among poachers.
Spotlighters use bright lights to hunt deer illegally under cover of darkness. The bright lights make the hunters easy for game officers to find, compared to the unobtrusive night-vision goggles.
ITT has identified commercial and recreational boaters as a prime market. But use of the goggles for after-dark recreational boating "would be an absolute nightmare," Haslep said.
Night boating is difficult and, as a result, is avoided by many boaters - to the delight of the game department.
Said Dick Arnold of the Smith Mountain Lake Yacht Club, who has many times traveled down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida: "Nobody runs at night. They're at a slip or have dropped anchor. There's just too many ways you can get in trouble at night."
The lake shore has red and green marker lights to help boaters feel their way safely over water by dark. Still, "the lake is a different place at night," said Arnold. "It's easy to have problems."
On dry land, the goggles could open up a whole new world for nature buffs.
Dean Stauffer, an associate professor of fisheries and wildlife science at Virginia Tech, has never used the night-vision goggles. But he'd like to.
"For raccoons, owls, bats, they could be real useful for researchers," said Stauffer. "I do a lot of songbird stuff and I try to be in place 45 minutes before sunlight. A flashlight gets me there just fine."
But would the cost be prohibitive?
"There are plenty of people into birding who don't blink at spending $2,000 to $3,000 for a pair of regular binoculars," said Rupert Cutler, the Explore Park leader who once was senior vice president of the National Audubon Society.
With night-vision goggles, it would be possible for birders to pick out nocturnal species. And, Cutler pointed out, birds are most active in the dim light of dawn and dusk, so night-vision goggles would help then, too.
"If ITT took out an ad in Audubon magazine or Defenders of Wildlife magazine or the Sierra Club magazine, they'd sell a lot of night-vision goggles to birders," Cutler said, adding with a laugh: "I think they've got a big market there, and I'd be happy to be a paid consultant to ITT."
Some nature buffs in the Roanoke Valley have already gotten a glimpse of the nighttime world - and more will in the coming year.
ITT donated five sets of goggles to Explore, which has teamed up with the Science Museum of Western Virginia and Mill Mountain Zoo to offer night nature walks through the woods along the Roanoke River east of Roanoke.
"We could see squirrels' nests and old birds' nests," said Ginny Webb, Explore's education director, who went on the first night walk in November. "We could see bats, but they were hard to keep up with. We could see possums and skunks."
Perhaps the most amazing sight, though, were the meteors that blazed across the sky - but were invisible to the naked eye.
That's why Explore and the Science Museum have scheduled one of their three upcoming nighttime hikes for August, to coincide with the annual Perseid meteor shower. The walk costs $4 per person - to cover the cost of keeping the goggles locked up in a vault, Webb said.
Staff writers Ed Shamy, Carolyn Click, Dwayne Yancey and Ron Brown contributed information to this story.