Hunts you consider unethical and why?

[matechakeric]

why do some view cow/doe hunts unethical?

 

[PablitoPescador]

It seems like the intent of this thread is more about shaming the way others hunt and virtue signaling the purity of one’s preferred methods than anything else. We got bigger fish to fry without destroying each other boys and girls!

 

[88man]

You forgot to put in a none of the above option.

There are several options listed in which I personally would not participate. Not because I think they are unethical, but because they simply do not interest me.

I do have a question for those who think that hunting an animal only to use its fur is unethical. Do you use the hide off your deer/elk? Why is it acceptable to waste any part of an animal that you kill? Do you use the bones/marrow? Do you eat the internal organs?

I wouldn't kill a deer just for its hide but I will kill it just for its meat. I won't kill a coyote for its meat but I will kill it for its hide. If you think one is acceptable and not the other, Why?

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

 

[88man]

why do some view cow/doe hunts unethical?

because they are human

 

[matechakeric]

because they are human

Other than telling me I'm morally inferior to those who dont hunt cows/does, I haven't learned anything

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Other than telling me I'm morally inferior to those who dont hunt cows/does, I haven't learned anything

I think the idea is that Bulls/Bucks are surplus cows are not. Kill 90% of the bulls next year you have same number of elk, every cow you kill lowers the population.

Some see any reduction of the population as unethical... I guess

 

[HighCountryCommando]

For me ethics boil down to a single question of purpose or intent. What is the purpose or intent of the hunt?

Ethical harvest is a harvest that serves a purpose, either a purpose or benefit for society, wildlife conservation, or personal safety. Columbia River Pike Minnow are harvested for bounties to increase salmon populations. Coyotes are harvested for bounties to manage coyote populations and often to manage the populations of their prey base. Barn owls are harvested to increase the number of federally listed spotted owls, since they compete directly with each other for the same habitat. If ground hogs or prairie dogs are destroying and digging up property does it matter if they are harvested with a firearm or traps or poison? Plenty of non-game species are ethically harvested for non consumption purposes that society deems justifiable due to the purpose their harvest serves. Non consumptive harvest is a lot trickier to paint as ethical because of the worth of these animals and the intent behind harvesting them is a lot more relative in my mind. But you can come up with a scenario under which just about any non consumptive harvest is ethical. The easiest are for personal safety or damage to property.

If your putting food on the table, I can't think of a scenario that is unethical. I don't have a problem hitting an animal with a Honda as a method of harvesting, as long as its a legal method of harvest, and you can do it without ruining the meat . How you harvest an animal has nothing to do with ethics, a method of harvest is neither fundamentally right or wrong. Rifle, bating, arrow, spear, dogs, truck, tiger pit, etc. States determine what is a legal method of harvest. Method of harvest does not determine the ethics of harvesting an animal.

Distance at which a animal is harvested does not determine the ethics of harvesting an animal. If I were starving and my family needed food and the only shot I had on a deer was at 800 yards, I'm taking that shot. In that scenario I'm not loosing an ounce of sleep if I end up shooting that deer 3 times and never hit vitals. Even if I just wound the deer and I never recover it, under my stated conditions, that shot would still be ethical. On the ethical scales, the risk of wounding the deer is outweighed by the risk of starving. Harvesting an elk with a single shot from a .300 win mag at 100 yards and the elk drops dead instantly may be a humane kill, but if that same hunter lets the meat go to waste in the freezer and eventually throws it out, that hunt was unethical. Too many hunters let meat rot in the freezer so they can hang antlers on the wall, or stack salmon like cord-wood in their freezer and leave them there for years until they are burned all the way through. A humane kill is NOT synonymous with an ethical kill.

Where you shoot an animal has nothing to do with ethics. High fence, no fence, private land, public land, it makes no difference. There is nothing fundamentally right or wrong about the condition of the environment in which you shoot an animal. Cattle are "shot" at point blank range to provide beef for society. How is that different than shooting a high fence elk sleeping next to a barn?

Management of wildlife is not predicated on the method of harvest. FWP does not set harvest objectives based on how many archery hunters there are. They estimate harvest based on how many animals a specified number of archers are likely to harvest. Harvest methods are a means to end, not the end itself. FWP is not managing the number of archers or rifle hunters, it manages game animals. Does management of any species rely on the method of harvest? Nope.

Here is where I think a lot of folks interject an ethical bias into the NAMWC. The origins of the NAMWC were to develop methods for managing species. It is not a set of rules for determining how individual harvest of animals occur, or what set of conditions must exist to harvest an animal. The NAMWC is a conservation tool, not a harvest tool. Harvest methods are a part of conservation and knowing the efficiency of a harvest method is critical, but the harvest methods itself is not. I hear too many folks in the hunting community reference the NAMWC when complaining about ethical shots, and ethical conditions, and ethical regulations, and they come off as elitist fly fisherman complaining that the only ethical way to catch trout is with a dry fly. Its baloney.

If I can shoot an elk 1000 yards with a spear, on a high fence hunt, during the rut, at midnight with a spot light, and I'm only harvesting the sex and number of animals allotted to me by the state to harvest, and the meat goes in my belly and my family stomachs, that hunt is as ethical as you can get. I don't expect states will establish regs making this kind of harvest legal, but if they did, the ethics of such a hunt would continue to be defined by the purpose and intent of the hunt.

 

[matechakeric]

I think the idea is that Bulls/Bucks are surplus cows are not. Kill 90% of the bulls next year you have same number of elk, every cow you kill lowers the population.

Some see any reduction of the population as unethical... I guess

i can see that. way I see it, if the state's laws and science leads them to allocate female tags for harvesting, it has been decided that some female animals are expected (and needed) to be removed from the landscape to support healthy herds and healthy hunting opportunities. If a state does not allow for cow elk tags, hunting cow elk there would not only be unethical but illegal. In states that do, fair game. Hunters are being used as a tool to control wildlife populations.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

i can see that. way I see it, if the state's laws and science leads them to allocate female tags for harvesting, that have decided that some female animals are expected (and needed) to be removed from the landscape to support healthy herds and healthy hunting opportunities. From what I can see, New Mexico does not allow for cow elk tags so hunting cow elk there would not only be unethical but illegal. In states that do, fair game. Hunters are being used as a tool to control wildlife populations.

Exactly where I think most of us are at... maybe not in MT.

 

[matechakeric]

For me ethics boil down to a single question of purpose or intent. What is the purpose or intent of the hunt?

Ethical harvest is a harvest that serves a purpose, either a purpose or benefit for society, wildlife conservation, or personal safety. Columbia River Pike Minnow are harvested for bounties to increase salmon populations. Coyotes are harvested for bounties to manage coyote populations and often to manage the populations of their prey base. Barn owls are harvested to increase the number of federally listed spotted owls, since they compete directly with each other for the same habitat. If ground hogs or prairie dogs are destroying and digging up property does it matter if they are harvested with a firearm or traps or poison? Plenty of non-game species are ethically harvested for non consumption purposes that society deems justifiable due to the purpose their harvest serves. Non consumptive harvest is a lot trickier to paint as ethical because of the worth of these animals and the intent behind harvesting them is a lot more relative in my mind. But you can come up with a scenario under which just about any non consumptive harvest is ethical. The easiest are for personal safety or damage to property.

If your putting food on the table, I can't think of a scenario that is unethical. I don't have a problem hitting an animal with a Honda as a method of harvesting, as long as its a legal method of harvest, and you can do it without ruining the meat . How you harvest an animal has nothing to do with ethics, a method of harvest is neither fundamentally right or wrong. Rifle, bating, arrow, spear, dogs, truck, tiger pit, etc. States determine what is a legal method of harvest. Method of harvest does not determine the ethics of harvesting an animal.

Distance at which a animal is harvested does not determine the ethics of harvesting an animal. If I were starving and my family needed food and the only shot I had on a deer was at 800 yards, I'm taking that shot. In that scenario I'm not loosing an ounce of sleep if I end up shooting that deer 3 times and never hit vitals. Even if I just wound the deer and I never recover it, under my stated conditions, that shot would still be ethical. On the ethical scales, the risk of wounding the deer is outweighed by the risk of starving. Harvesting an elk with a single shot from a .300 win mag at 100 yards and the elk drops dead instantly may be a humane kill, but if that same hunter lets the meat go to waste in the freezer and eventually throws it out, that hunt was unethical. Too many hunters let meat rot in the freezer so they can hang antlers on the wall, or stack salmon like cord-wood in their freezer and leave them there for years until they are burned all the way through. A humane kill is NOT synonymous with an ethical kill.

Where you shoot an animal has nothing to do with ethics. High fence, no fence, private land, public land, it makes no difference. There is nothing fundamentally right or wrong about the condition of the environment in which you shoot an animal. Cattle are "shot" at point blank range to provide beef for society. How is that different than shooting a high fence elk sleeping next to a barn?

Management of wildlife is not predicated on the method of harvest. FWP does not set harvest objectives based on how many archery hunters there are. They estimate harvest based on how many animals a specified number of archers are likely to harvest. Harvest methods are a means to end, not the end itself. FWP is not managing the number of archers or rifle hunters, it manages game animals. Does management of any species rely on the method of harvest? Nope.

Here is where I think a lot of folks interject an ethical bias into the NAMWC. The origins of the NAMWC were to develop methods for managing species. It is not a set of rules for determining how individual harvest of animals occur, or what set of conditions must exist to harvest an animal. The NAMWC is a conservation tool, not a harvest tool. Harvest methods are a part of conservation and knowing the efficiency of a harvest method is critical, but the harvest methods itself is not. I hear too many folks in the hunting community reference the NAMWC when complaining about ethical shots, and ethical conditions, and ethical regulations, and they come off as elitist fly fisherman complaining that the only ethical way to catch trout is with a dry fly. Its baloney.

If I can shoot an elk 1000 yards with a spear, on a high fence hunt, during the rut, at midnight with a spot light, and I'm only harvesting the sex and number of animals allotted to me by the state to harvest, and the meat goes in my belly and my family stomachs, that hunt is as ethical as you can get. I don't expect states will establish regs making this kind of harvest legal, but if they did, the ethics of such a hunt would continue to be defined by the purpose and intent of the hunt.

interesting points. maybe you covered this and I missed it but something has to be said for "causing undue harm and stress on an animal". If you decide to get nestled into a nice prone position on an elk 1000 yards away because you have been practicing your long range marksmanship when you could easily stalk well within 400 yards at the very least.....and it takes 4 shots (and potentially one shot breaking a front leg) of a hardly expanding accubond to end that elk's life. I cannot get behind well it's legal therefore it should not be judged ethically or unethically.

That's where hunter's ethos should come into play. A hunter, regardless of the legality of action, should always seek to cause the least amount of suffering and stress on an animal harvested. That's a morality issue in my opinion, but then others may argue animals were put on this planet to serve man's needs so who knows. I'm not of that mindset but I know some others are.

 

[matechakeric]

Exactly where I think most of us are at... maybe not in MT.

i corrected my original post. cow tags are sold in New Mexico. agree with you.

 

[undercover]

So I checked off High Fence, white tail specific, there is more to it than shooting the monster and some genetically altered deer. I’ve been in many local high fences for surveys, shed hunting, fishing there ponds. The fence operations around here are whitetail only, no natural browse, all mechanical feeding stations, and a fawn cull when babies are birthed the fawn does are killed and fawn bucks are free to live. Keeping the buck to doe ratios in tact. That’s the part that disgusts me, wanton waste.

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

So I checked off High Fence, white tail specific, there is more to it than shooting the monster and some genetically altered deer. I’ve been in many local high fences for surveys, shed hunting, fishing there ponds. The fence operations around here are whitetail only, no natural browse, all mechanical feeding stations, and a fawn cull when babies are birthed the fawn does are killed and fawn bucks are free to live. Keeping the buck to doe ratios in tact. That’s the part that disgusts me, wanton waste.

How was the shed hunting?

 

[undercover]

How was the shed hunting?

Lame, pull em out of the hay bails

 

[YoungGun]

Helicopter Hog Hunting- Appeals to some people who want to get their tacti-cool on, and good for them that it's an option. Wouldn't be my cup of tea.

 

[DrAlphabet]

For me ethics boil down to a single question of purpose or intent. What is the purpose or intent of the hunt?

Ethical harvest is a harvest that serves a purpose, either a purpose or benefit for society, wildlife conservation, or personal safety. Columbia River Pike Minnow are harvested for bounties to increase salmon populations. Coyotes are harvested for bounties to manage coyote populations and often to manage the populations of their prey base. Barn owls are harvested to increase the number of federally listed spotted owls, since they compete directly with each other for the same habitat. If ground hogs or prairie dogs are destroying and digging up property does it matter if they are harvested with a firearm or traps or poison? Plenty of non-game species are ethically harvested for non consumption purposes that society deems justifiable due to the purpose their harvest serves. Non consumptive harvest is a lot trickier to paint as ethical because of the worth of these animals and the intent behind harvesting them is a lot more relative in my mind. But you can come up with a scenario under which just about any non consumptive harvest is ethical. The easiest are for personal safety or damage to property.

If your putting food on the table, I can't think of a scenario that is unethical. I don't have a problem hitting an animal with a Honda as a method of harvesting, as long as its a legal method of harvest, and you can do it without ruining the meat . How you harvest an animal has nothing to do with ethics, a method of harvest is neither fundamentally right or wrong. Rifle, bating, arrow, spear, dogs, truck, tiger pit, etc. States determine what is a legal method of harvest. Method of harvest does not determine the ethics of harvesting an animal.

Distance at which a animal is harvested does not determine the ethics of harvesting an animal. If I were starving and my family needed food and the only shot I had on a deer was at 800 yards, I'm taking that shot. In that scenario I'm not loosing an ounce of sleep if I end up shooting that deer 3 times and never hit vitals. Even if I just wound the deer and I never recover it, under my stated conditions, that shot would still be ethical. On the ethical scales, the risk of wounding the deer is outweighed by the risk of starving. Harvesting an elk with a single shot from a .300 win mag at 100 yards and the elk drops dead instantly may be a humane kill, but if that same hunter lets the meat go to waste in the freezer and eventually throws it out, that hunt was unethical. Too many hunters let meat rot in the freezer so they can hang antlers on the wall, or stack salmon like cord-wood in their freezer and leave them there for years until they are burned all the way through. A humane kill is NOT synonymous with an ethical kill.

Where you shoot an animal has nothing to do with ethics. High fence, no fence, private land, public land, it makes no difference. There is nothing fundamentally right or wrong about the condition of the environment in which you shoot an animal. Cattle are "shot" at point blank range to provide beef for society. How is that different than shooting a high fence elk sleeping next to a barn?

Management of wildlife is not predicated on the method of harvest. FWP does not set harvest objectives based on how many archery hunters there are. They estimate harvest based on how many animals a specified number of archers are likely to harvest. Harvest methods are a means to end, not the end itself. FWP is not managing the number of archers or rifle hunters, it manages game animals. Does management of any species rely on the method of harvest? Nope.

Here is where I think a lot of folks interject an ethical bias into the NAMWC. The origins of the NAMWC were to develop methods for managing species. It is not a set of rules for determining how individual harvest of animals occur, or what set of conditions must exist to harvest an animal. The NAMWC is a conservation tool, not a harvest tool. Harvest methods are a part of conservation and knowing the efficiency of a harvest method is critical, but the harvest methods itself is not. I hear too many folks in the hunting community reference the NAMWC when complaining about ethical shots, and ethical conditions, and ethical regulations, and they come off as elitist fly fisherman complaining that the only ethical way to catch trout is with a dry fly. Its baloney.

If I can shoot an elk 1000 yards with a spear, on a high fence hunt, during the rut, at midnight with a spot light, and I'm only harvesting the sex and number of animals allotted to me by the state to harvest, and the meat goes in my belly and my family stomachs, that hunt is as ethical as you can get. I don't expect states will establish regs making this kind of harvest legal, but if they did, the ethics of such a hunt would continue to be defined by the purpose and intent of the hunt.

I don't agree with all your points, but I definitely understand your point of view. Specifically around nuisance and conservation hunting. I even went back and changed some of my answers! Where you lose me is the distance hunting... Maybe it's because I just went through the hunter training course so some of the lessons they taught are fresh in my mind but I think matechakeric summed it up nicely: "A hunter, regardless of the legality of action, should always seek to cause the least amount of suffering and stress on an animal harvested".
However, I do agree with what you said about how putting food on the table for your family trumps just about any moral indiscretion. Fortunately, we don't live in a reality where the majority of people are anywhere near starving so a lot of the examples here are pretty excessive. If you are in that position and your only food source is an elephant in a tree surrounded by a cage 1000 yards away, then yea, shoot it three times just to be sure.
everyone here eats elephant meat, right? lol

Edit: this is coming from someone who has never hunted (yet) so i fully recognize my opinions aren't fully formed by experience like some of yalls. There are obviously nuances to certain forms of hunting I don't (and can't) possibly understand so anyone who practices these types of hunts, i'm not the one to condemn you ...but high fence feels icky

 

[HighCountryCommando]

I agree that a humane kill should be a goal of the typical modern hunter. However, a humane kill is NOT synonymous with an ethical kill. This thread is about the ethics of hunting and harvesting, so I am only addressing the ethical-ness of long range shooting. I am not addressing the presence or absence of a humane harvest. There is no right or wrong inherent in long range shooting. You can derive an infinite number of situations where a long range shot is ethical, just as you can for concluding a long range shot is unethical. My point is only that the ethics of shot distance, again, rest solely in the circumstances of the hunt and the hunter.

The concept of fair chase as defined by Boone and Crockett has a grey area, specifically, "Behave in a way that will bring no dishonor to either the hunter, the hunted, or the environment." There is a lot of personal opinion each individual hunter conducts a hunt by in that statement. I see fair chase concepts used by elitists hunters to bash the methods other hunters employee in the traditional, legal, and ethical harvest of animals. I also see hunting opposition groups use the tenants of fair chase to impose the idea that if a harvest is inhumane, an animal suffers, and thus the hunter and his harvest methods are unethical. Death is human, but rarely humane. I don't even know how to define a humane harvest. Is the quickness of death the only metric that matters when deciding if a harvest is humane? Years ago I saw a car hit a deer fawn. I pulled over onto the shoulder to see if it was hurt. Its spine was broken, as were both its back legs. I could have left it there to suffer, but instead I quickly dispatched it. Was that humane? I don't know. It felt right, but the humane-ness of it can be debated. I've personally had bad shot placement on a close range shot due to the deer moving as I pulled the trigger. It took me 24 hours to locate the deer and finish it off. Is that harvest inhumane? Does an animal suffering constitute an unethical harvest?

My son once shot a deer three times. The first two shots were not lethal, not even close. But the third shot was a heart shot that put the deer down instantly. All said, from the time of the initial shot, the deer expired in less than 30 seconds. Does it matter if those shots were taken at close range or long range? How about archery hunters? I have seen elk shot at 20 yards in the lung and liver take over an hour to die. Is that archery harvest less ethical than my son's harvest since the animal "suffered" longer? Would your answer change if I said my son had shot his deer at 800 yards? If so, why?

My point is only that shot distance is not a metric for determining an ethical shot. Ethical-ness is determined by following the law and the underlying intent and purpose of the hunt. A humane kill, whatever that means, is a worthy goal for each hunter to strive for, but its not synonymous with hunting ethics. You could start another thread on "what is a humane harvest?" and you would get hundreds of different opinions. I'm just address the ethics of shot distance, and I see no basis for characterizing or defining shot distance as right or wrong based solely on the distance of the shot.

 

[Rzrbck918]

What about hunting feral cats?

 

[Ben Lamb]

These are Webster's synonyms for "unethical",

• bad,
• black,
• dark,
• evil,
• immoral,
• iniquitous,
• nefarious,
• rotten,
• sinful,
• unlawful,
• unrighteous,
• unsavory,
• vicious,
• vile,
• villainous,
• wicked,
• Governor of Montana

FIFY

 

[LuketheDog]

FIFY

Throw the lot in there, I'm getting sick of all the politicians...