What Do You?

[Dawg]

What do you classify as unethical hunting or what do you view as unethical hunting?

[Ethan Givan]

Its hard to define what I think is unethical because every situation is different, but anything that breaks hunting laws for that area would be unethical in my opinion. Also anything that greatly increases the chance of wounding animals i.e. taking running shots, or shooting farther than your effective range etc.

[wtnhunt]

Unethical to me is the engaging in any activity or practice you know are not legal or are not right, whatever that may be. Also have to add that ignorance to rules and regs can also lead to what I would view as unethical practices.

[elkoholic]

I will assume you are talking about specific "hunting" practices that various people use to fill their tag(s). These people are not hunters. Here is my list.

First there are the "road hunters". They are very prevalent here in Montana and, although illegal, they have little fear of being apprehended. Some of them openly brag about shooting several deer until they have one drop where they can see it fall.

Secondly, those who feel that they have the right to circumvent the gates placed on forest service roads (or private property) and believe that they have the right to ride/drive where ever they feel like in their quest to fill their tag. Basically these people are an extension of the road hunting mentality.

Third there is the issue of baiting. A touchy subject I know, but, it is not legal here.

There are people who each year travel from the mountains in western Montana to the plains in the east to hunt antelope. Some of them talk of "flock" shooting as a means of filling their tag. This usually consists of taking a very long shot aimed at the center of a herd of antelope in the hopes of hitting one and then having it fall over while still in their view. Many times this is done as the antelope are running as I have heard these same "hunters" describe chasing the antelope with their trucks and when they think they are close enough they slam on the brakes and jump out shooting.

The list could go on but I will just add that anyone who takes a shot at an animal, no matter the weapon used, who hopes to connect is an unethical hunter. As a hunter, one must know that they can make the shot.

[Dawg]

I will assume you are talking about specific "hunting" practices that various people use to fill their tag(s). These people are not hunters. Here is my list.

First there are the "road hunters". They are very prevalent here in Montana and, although illegal, they have little fear of being apprehended. Some of them openly brag about shooting several deer until they have one drop where they can see it fall.

Secondly, those who feel that they have the right to circumvent the gates placed on forest service roads (or private property) and believe that they have the right to ride/drive where ever they feel like in their quest to fill their tag. Basically these people are an extension of the road hunting mentality.

Third there is the issue of baiting. A touchy subject I know, but, it is not legal here.

There are people who each year travel from the mountains in western Montana to the plains in the east to hunt antelope. Some of them talk of "flock" shooting as a means of filling their tag. This usually consists of taking a very long shot aimed at the center of a herd of antelope in the hopes of hitting one and then having it fall over while still in their view. Many times this is done as the antelope are running as I have heard these same "hunters" describe chasing the antelope with their trucks and when they think they are close enough they slam on the brakes and jump out shooting.

The list could go on but I will just add that anyone who takes a shot at an animal, no matter the weapon used, who hopes to connect is an unethical hunter. As a hunter, one must know that they can make the shot.

Good post.

If baiting was legal there, would you still consider it unethical?

[redkneck]

Ethics is a matter of opinion, and you can certainly be ethical and outside of the law IMHO. Personally I follow the law 95% of the time when it comes to hunting. I like the golden rule, just give back more to the herd than you took.

[johnf]

Any manner of hunting which endangers yourself or other hunters. ie. Drug or Alcholhol, hunting from roads and trails (legal in some states) from a moving vehicle. Hunting that puts undue stress on the animal like deer drives and running with dogs. Hunting game that you don't need or wasting game. Taking shots on an animal that you aren't prepared to take or don't have the proper equipment for like taking a 50 yard shot with a 30lb bow or a 300 yard shot with a 223. Just becuase a weapon is legal doesn't make it lethal in every situation.

[elkoholic]

Good post.

If baiting was legal there, would you still consider it unethical?

Short answer, yes. You will never find me sitting in an elevated blind staring down a sendero littered with cracked corn, or overlooking a feeder, a pile of corn or apples, a salt block, or a food plot so small I could shoot across it. The baiting issue is much more complicated than it appears, but when it comes to sitting over an unnatural attractant (mainly food based) I will defer and fill my tag in a way that I can feel good about.

Ethics is an interesting subject and while most of us can agree that doing something that is in violation of the law is unethical, the issue becomes a little cloudy when not directly addressed legally. We should all be experts at practicing good ethics but in reality we all fail miserably. That is not saying we are all unethical, but everyone has their moments and the rhetoric to justify our actions.

One more thing that I consider unethical is deer hunting with dogs. I might feel differently about it if that was what I grew up with, but it is wrong in so many ways.

If we have no respect for the animals we hunt, we are undeniably unethical.

[elkoholic]

Ethics is a matter of opinion, and you can certainly be ethical and outside of the law IMHO. Personally I follow the law 95% of the time when it comes to hunting. I like the golden rule, just give back more to the herd than you took.

The only way it would be ethical to break the law would be when it becomes commonly acceptable to break the law. That, I believe, is called anarchy.

[Doc]

Great topic!!! Unfortunately, it's not as easy to answer as I thought it would be. I suppose nearly all of us would agree that it is unethical to break the law. I would hope that goes without saying, and if we agree on that, it gets a whole bunch of items off the table that each state has labled as "illegal".

But then there are those things that are not so easily decided by their legal standing. Practices, tactics and equipment that may be perfectly legal, but not up to our own individual standards. Those are the ones where we are sure to get into disagreements over. When you take the legalities out of the discussion, all ethics become personal and individual, and in most cases will cause some pretty heated debate. Just the perfect thing for internet forums ..... lol.

I have one abiding rule that kind of guides my own personal set of ethical boundaries. When one begins to get into the act of trying to change the wild characteristics of their prey for the purpose of making their hunting easier, that begins to stray into the territory that I consider unethical. For example: A hunter finds that he can condition deer to come into the sound of an automatic feeder and then hunts that feeder accordingly. To me he is getting into the area of unethical behavior. He has conditioned his prey's behavior to put them in a more vulnerable situation. He has modified the natural behavior of the deer to remove some of the unpredictability that is a part of the species.

Anytime a hunter begins to treat their prey like domesticated livestock or tries to apply agricultural practices to them in order to facilitate their hunting, there is an ethical boundary being crossed in my mind. When I see some of these QDM programs on TV where hunting operations begin to look like Joe Farmer managing his herd of cattle, I cringe a bit and start to feel like the line is again being crossed. These people are not treating their prey as wild animals, but are rather trying to grow their animals through animal husbandry techniques and then provide conditions where their hunting is made simpler. I don't know why, but that kind of rubs me the wrong way. To me that's not hunting, but rather it is livestock farming. Is it unethical??? Well, there are a bunch of people that would argue with me that it's not. In fact there are some who think it's an ethical imperitive to nurture the herd that you hunt in this fashion. They see it as an ethical responsibility to the herd. I can understand that too, to a certain extent. However, I think we also have a responsibility to allow a species to evolve as a wild creature which naturally maintains the characteristics of the species so it can develop as nature intends. That too is an ethical choice. That's what makes this ethics thing such a difficult thing to discuss. So many different ways to look at the same thing!

All that and I still haven't gotten into the ethics of shot selection, hunting equipment, accessories, technology, safety, and all the other things in hunting that we assign ethical decisions to.

Doc

[ruttinbuc]

Great post, Doc! It it hard to look at so many things and get and get an answer to right or wrong. I agree with leaving the animals, animals. I see ethics changing every time there is a dollar to be made. Commercialization has changed the game big time. We see it because we have been around it for so long. It is hard to convince the generation now of anything different than what they are used to. They are bombarded with pitches for everything from soup to nuts. The hunting part of it gets lost in the shuffle.

[Goinghuntin]

Wow got a good thread going here corey I consider good ethics to be to respect the animal and it's life, to observe to local laws, and to follow the wishes/agreements of the landowners.

In respecting the animal, I won't take a shot at an animal running, I'm actually a very good shot but deer just run too darn fast for most to be able to pull off that shot 100% of the time. I saw my hunting buddy take a deer at 100 yards at a slow run, dropped her with a great lung shot, but I wouldn't have pulled the trigger. I just don't like shooting that far. I won't take a shot that I'm not confident won't drop that animal as quickly and humanely as possible, 100% of the time. And I won't take the shot unless I can see all of the head, neck, and body of the animal I'm shooting at. Remember, that's someone else's life you're playing with.

There are some laws in Iowa that I don't agree with, namely that you can't set out bait but you can prepare and hunt over a food plot that I don't like. Just seems like the same thing to me. But I still follow all the laws, just don't like 'em Too many officers running around to do otherwise :jaw:

And I follow the agreement I make with the landowner to the letter and then some. If I see trash out hunting I'll pick it up, I'll leave gates open that were open when I got there and close the gates behind me that were closed. When I cross a barbed wire fence I'll straighten all the strands back up that I stepped on. It's the little things that win the hearts of the landowners And I won't pick mushrooms when they ask me not too :eat:

Again, good thread Corey.

Nathan

[Dawg]

Great replies here folks. While I understand the points that elkoholic and Doc are making about food plots and treating the herd like domesticated animals, I disagree to some extent.

I do not plant big corn fields, alfalfa fields or such. I do however spread sack corn out. Mainly, because the herd in my neck of the woods is few and far in between. I do this to help me fill my tag, but it's nothing like the big TV shows.

When I travel to Colorado to hunt, we hunt private property, some is river bottom, some is corn fields and alfalfa fields that the land owner plants as a source of income. Again, I see nothing wrong with hunting over these huge fields.

Again, great replies!! And just a FYI, I'm not arguing my point or against yours, just want to see how you view it.

Thanks guys.

[tom wayman]

hey dawg ..i know what ur saying here .. i'v had some of those kinda guys.. they would shoot behind the does to run them off ,cause they only wanted bucks.they did not care abuot if we got one or not ..thats an uneth hunter to me

tom

[tom wayman]

come to think of it i have some uneth hunters where i hunt now ..no respect for anyone else .they don't tell anyone where they r goin to be n they ride they'er 4 wheelers down through the woods. that is as uneth as u can get

[redkneck]

The only way it would be ethical to break the law would be when it becomes commonly acceptable to break the law. That, I believe, is called anarchy.

Well I'm just being honest. I wear my orange vest almost all the time, but if I drive all the way to the back of our lease and realize I left it on the table at the camp, I hunt anyway. I still consider myself an ethical hunter. There's been times I've had to go and track a deer at night I shot with a bow, I'll carry my 22 rifle sometimes in case I need to finish her off... again, highly illegal, but not unethical to me. I figure a government that has legalized abortion as a matter of convenience to mothers does not have the moral high ground when telling me what is right and wrong. I don't advocate anyone breaking the law, but I don't automatically throw the "unethical" tag on them for doing it either. The "e" word gets thrown around fast and loose in here, but I bet you'll not find many members that don't break some law routinely, but most are pretty good ethical folks I'd guess.

but again... it's just an opinion..... (that Corey guy seems shifty.. :shifty: )

Edited May 30, 2010 by redkneck

[johnf]

Well I'm just being honest. I wear my orange vest almost all the time, but if I drive all the way to the back of our lease and realize I left it on the table at the camp, I hunt anyway. I still consider myself an ethical hunter. There's been times I've had to go and track a deer at night I shot with a bow, I'll carry my 22 rifle sometimes in case I need to finish her off... again, highly illegal, but not unethical to me. I figure a government that has legalized abortion as a matter of convenience to mothers does not have the moral high ground when telling me what is right and wrong. I don't advocate anyone breaking the law, but I don't automatically throw the "unethical" tag on them for doing it either. The "e" word gets thrown around fast and loose in here, but I bet you'll not find many members that don't break some law routinely, but most are pretty good ethical folks I'd guess.

but again... it's just an opinion..... (that Corey guy seems shifty.. :shifty: )

So you don't think that carrying a gun during archery season is unethical. A gutshot deer should be given the respect to die a slow aginizing death rather than being put down quickly and painlessly. Obviously being sarcastic there.

Sometimes laws don't cover ethics and I believe sometimes eithics are outside the law. I personally don't think running deer with dogs is ethical. There was a time where the land was so thick and the deer were so thin that it was the only way you could see the deer. Today, not so much. Of the dozen or so times I've dealt with dog runners or participated in it myslf I never saw anyone do it legally or ethically. In Redkneck's case I don't have a problem with someone wanting to put a woulded deer down quickly and painlessly.

[Dawg]

but again... it's just an opinion..... (that Corey guy seems shifty.. :shifty: )

No I'm not.....wait....maybe I am.......who knows.

Sometimes laws don't cover ethics and I believe sometimes eithics are outside the law.

That is the truth right there, couldn't agree with you more on that.

[redkneck]

I'll always say you can be totally within the law and unethical... and totally ethical and outside the law. One is a matter of personal morals and the other a statutory matter. Morals and law are completely different matters by definition.

[Doc]

I'm not sure just how I feel about hunters deciding what laws are to be observed and which ones should not. It seems that that kind of attitude could probably be twisted around to justify almost any violation. Example: A hunter has convinced himself that the herd density is way too high and so justifies grabbing the rifle and a light and thinning the herd a bit at night. I think it is better to simply adopt the attitude that the law may not be totally in accordance with my thinking, but it is the law. If I don't like it, I should be working to change it, not simply ignoring it. Doesn't that sound more reasonable? I know it would sound pretty reasonable to the local game warden and the judge that he might drag me in front of if I decided to pick and choose which laws to obey.

Doc

[redkneck]

The laws are in place for a good reason. If I ever get caught breaking one I'll pay my fine without question, just like if I get caught doing 56 in a 55. But the post was not about obeying the law, it was about ethics.

btw, these are the best threads, they start a lively discussion! Nothing like a spirited debate.

Edited May 30, 2010 by redkneck

[Goinghuntin]

There's been times I've had to go and track a deer at night I shot with a bow, I'll carry my 22 rifle sometimes in case I need to finish her off... again, highly illegal, but not unethical to me.

Great case right there Redneck. I'd probably do the same :eat:

I'll always say you can be totally within the law and unethical... and totally ethical and outside the law.

Again, good point. Not quite what I said earlier on in this thread, but you shined a light on it for me :1eye:

btw, these are the best threads, they start a lively discussion! Nothing like a spirited debate.

Lol I don't often get into debating but this is beginning to be a fun thread :pop:

Nathan

[wtnhunt]

Think John has probably got a pretty good point on some instances, and in saying that I am in no way condoning breaking any game laws, but I can understand where he is coming from. Of course shooting after legal shooting hours is a no no, but what would you do if you shot an animal within legal shooting time and upon tracking the animal you find it 15 to 20 minutes after legal shooting light has ended and you see it is still very well alive and suffering. Do you let it lay overnight and run the risk of it getting up or pushed by finished off by yotes, or do you finish it off and take care of it? Hard to say what you would do in those situations until you are actually in the situation.

On what Doc had to say on conditioning the animals, we unfortunately have been dealing with baiters using feeders on neighboring property immediately behind us, not legal here and those participating in that activity are cheats in my book.

[fly]

I'll throw a curve here and add that I don't always see something that is illegal as unethical. One example: In IL the law indicates a deer that is hit by a car and dieing on the road can not be finished off by any means unless it is a police officer (maybe conservation as well). If I had a knife I'd finish of a dieing deer to put it out of its missery. I'd also be fined.

[Turkeygirl]

Hold on a minute, let me get...:eat:

It's a matter of opinion and a matter of what the state regulations are...IMO.

For example some think it's unethical to shoot a turkey off the roost. In NY it's not illegal and I did it way bacl when I first started turkey hunting, only because I was absolutely positive of making a clean kill...to me it's ethical, but to someone else it may be unethical.

Baiting, well some states can do it, some states can't. IMO if someone wants to bait where it's legal, they can. I won't even if I could, I think it takes away from the "real hunt" I want to experience.

What I really think is unethical is what our neighbors do during gun season - surround a field with all their guys, push deer out of a block of woods, empty their guns on deer running full out...I found 3 dead deer this year on neighboring property, most likely is my guess from them. Now that is just unethical to the deer and unsafe when there are other people hunting.