Ethics
For those of you who haven’t read the DE Shotgun or DE Archery (NOV) thread, I’ll let you know that from 11/10 to 11/17 I hunted 5 days, dawn til dusk. I wasn’t fortunate enough to harvest a deer or even see that much. But, I did see and hear a lot of other things that disturb me. I’ll have to tell a couple short stories to make my point. Please bear with me.
On Saturday 11/15 I witnessed someone fire 8, yes 8 slug rounds at a doe that couldn’t have weighed 45 lbs. and had to be at least 130yds from the hunter. Upon walking up to this hunter and checking out the deer, I saw that it was shot in the ass, hindquarter, and gut shot. I think it finally died of a heart attack. The hunter was HAPPY with this kill! I was sickened. For reasons I can’t say I was not in the position to tell this person what I truly thought of this act. All I could do was shake my head and walk away.
On Monday 11/17, my father pulled a Refuge Stand at Woodland Beach. These stands aren’t hunted often during the year and present a good opportunity for a Deer. Well, at 1:30pm he sees the guy in the stand across from him stand up and take aim. After 3 shots, the guy gets down from his stand, looks around, and heads to the meadow. After a few mins, 4 more shots, machine gun style (Where’s the plug?). By 2:45pm, the guy sits back in his stand. I don’t know about you all, but if I lost a deer and blasted away 7 slugs into the meadow, I’d call it a day. But no, this guy decides he’ll hang out and try to cripple another one. Uggh.
In the parking lot at the stands, I’m waiting for my father to come back from his stand and some other hunters are in the parking lot Bull Sh@ting. An older fellow is telling the story of how he broke a Doe’s leg and it got away. It wasn’t what he was saying but how he said it. Kinda bragging and shrugging his shoulders like ‘oh well’. He comes over to me and asks if I had any luck. I said ‘no’ and asked him about his day. Tells me the broken leg story. I asked him how long he trailed it. Said he didn’t! It was getting late and didn’t want to be wandering the meadow. I asked if he planned to go back and he said ‘no’. He shrugged he shoulders and said ‘what can you do?’ I wouldn’t look at him after that. This was an older guy too. Like early 60’s. I was dumbfounded.
I heard a lot of machine gunning (three real quick shots) from the public grounds. These people can’t possibly be aiming at anything! Just firing at running deer hoping for the best.
What the heck is wrong with these people? I just can’t understand it. Is there no ethics or respect for the animal? I try and tell myself that these stories are the minority, but I see more and more every year. These hunters aren’t breaking laws, but they’re making all hunters look bad and disrespecting the Deer as well as themselves. My wife freaked when I told her the 8-slug deer story. I guess I shouldn’t have told her, but I’m not gonna lie when she asks me what I saw.
I guess all I can do is continue to do what I think is right and try not to judge others. The people in the stories above felt like what they did was just fine. Who am I tell them they are wrong? Who died and made me the ethics god right?
Anyone else have any opinions on this issue or seen anything similar occurring? Maybe I was just in the wrong places at the wrong times?