Great discussion on ethics HT podcast #98

[onpoint]

I simply posed a question.....

 

[mtmuley]

I simply posed a question.....

If you are that interested, pm me. No need to hijack the ethics thread. mtmuley

 

[onpoint]

Hijack the ethics thread?
If the lack of/mis/poor management of a living breathing public resource isn't an ethics question - I have no idea what is.
And if the very public who utilizes and is the beneficiary of that resource doesn't get personally involved in that management, is that an ethics issue/question?
Questions all answered with opinions.
So maybe they're the all kinda' the same kinda' discussions?

Maybe it's just that I've been hunting excessively for 43 years and what caliber and/or big bull pics aren't as interesting to me anymore as deep thoughts on what we do are. Jose Ortega y Gasset, Aldo Leopold, and oh yeah Jim Posewitz - sold books on this stuff - worked for them......

 

[elkduds]

At the end of the day I drove home, put the gun in the safe and ripped up my tag. And I felt terrible for the next two weeks

To me, ethics are less about what we do, and more about how we decide what we do. Meaning ethics have a longer half life than one season. My decisions while hunting are the result of everything I have absorbed during my life, not just while hunting. If those experiences and decisions do not get discussed on internet forums, how can hunters consider their own ethics in light of the ethics of others? I suspect ethical questions are difficult to discuss in person for most. I'm sure that abandonment of ethics would hasten the end of sport hunting on public lands.

 

[WhitetailTracker]

Not to hijack this thread either, but I do see where mtmuley was going with his comment. If I'm picking this up right I think Big Fin alluded to the same thing. Thoughts on ethics can be different based on what might be locally considered part of hunting or not. Take chasing deer with dogs in the South. In some places a very long standing and important tradition. Baiting bears in Maine could be another example. There could be a 1000 opinions on any of these topics based on what your hunting upbringing might be. What I thought folks might be more interested in discussing on the tag notching topic wasn't based on the ethical part of the podcast discussion but whether if hunters should advocate it becoming a law or not.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

if hunters should advocate it becoming a law or not.

I think being done after drawing blood can be a good management tactic in certain areas. I don't think it makes sense to make it make it a blanket reg, but it's a good tool.

Black bears on POW is a great example the management goals + geography (island with dense undergrowth that can make recovery difficult) + the fact that it's a draw hunt where the goal is limited harvest create a situation where you could have but absolutely don't want a high rate of killed but un-recovered animals.

Conversely this would be a dumb rule for antelope hunting, in my experience it's pretty easy to tell if an antelope was lethally hit, and recovery isn't very hard so there is probably a very low rate of killed but un-recovered animals.