I agree with all of this. For wildlife, using long distance IR or something to augment makes more sense than higher brightness normal lights , given how falloff works.
I have "Night Vision Assist" on my car. It has an IR sensor up front and displays a live image on the instrument cluster. It uses AI to highlight pedestrians and animals. When I'm being blinded by lights I rely on Night Vision far more than I wish I had to. It would be even better if it were integrated into a head-up display, overlaying objects on the windshield. (I suppose it would need to track the driver's eyes to know where to display them.)
