GR8atta2d

We were up at camp this weekend. Friday night went out spotting. We spot a nice buck in a field close to the road. Upon watching him, both his front legs are busted up bad (car accident??). He is trying to walk on his back legs and elbows of his front legs. Man thats the worst! What can you legally do...nothing! He has no chance of making it. I' ve never felt so bad for an animal. I suppose I could have went out Saturday and try' d to get permission to hunt him. But then I use my (only)tag for a mercy killing. I know nature is cruel but sometimes witnessing it is a sad sight.
He did finally make it into the tree line, I imagine his struggle is now over, but the image remains.

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mr4pt

Sometimes what' s legal and what' s humane are two different things.

eng40sqd

You could have called the dept of game and had them send out a warden, who would have hopefully put the animal down! He probably would have offered the animal to you afterwards. I do not know what I would have done if they did not come out , but dont know if I could have not done anything.

buck huntin fool

I think I would have put him down.

JZarr

A friend of ours saw a big buck get smacked by a car a few years back. The next day we went to look for it and we found him still alive, but both back legs were broken clean off at the knees. When we found him he tried running away on his broken legs. It was one of the most painful things I' ve ever had to witness. It took us over an hour to eventually catch up with him and we ended up shooting him and putting one of our archery tags on him just to make it legal and put the poor deer out of it' s misery.

When we finally got him cleaned and hung the insides of the bones in his back legs were packed full of mud and debris from where he' d been running on them. I don' t even want to think about the pain that deer must have been in.

Tazman

Thank the lord I have never been in this position with a deer, I have been there with dogs, cats and squirrels, I used what I had at the time to put the animal out of its misery and can honestly say the law can be damned when it comes to a suffering animal, I will put it out of its misery and suffer the consequences.

bigcat fhsu

Amen Tazman

GR8atta2d

I know, thats what sounds right, and I agree with you guys. But when faced with that situation directly, maybe it' s different. We had no weapons of any kind, not even a knife. (strictly forbidden in Pa when spotting). Running after even a crip with a tire iron to bash his head in seems just as bad as doing nothing. Imagine getting caught by a less sympathetic law officer. Then I get labeled as a poacher and lose my hunting rights, pay fines etc.
Unfortunately, i' ve seen people do the right thing in other circumstances and get burned for it. If I was in the woods and saw that it would have ben different. I would have taken him. Back when spikes were legal in Pa, I once shot one as it came by me on opening day. The deer was falling every couple of steps, his guts trailing out behind him. The victim of a young hunters shot. Boy was I glad when the kid showed up trailing the deer. I told him it was his to keep I just ended his suffering. The kid was happy and the deers suffering was shortend, and I didn' t have to explain to the others at camp why I shot a spike! (we had a no spike rule even then).

GeoffM24

I couldn' t have left it. Bow, pistol, knife, whatever. Worst case scenerio I would have called the police.