ORIGINAL: Screamin Steel

There is nothing sporting in tagging a WCO dispatched deer. Sporting implies fair chase and our hunter in this story had no legal or ethical obligations toclaim thatdeer. Also....what is your definition of wasted? If this deer had provided nourishment to scavengers, microorganisms, and plants in his death, then exactly what is wasted other than our own ideology of a trophy set of antlers, or tender backstraps? Why have we seemed to have lost sight of the natural processes at work, outside of our own human influences. To claim that deer would have been wasted is no better than the tree hugger soccer mom that wants the WCO to dispatch a coyote because she and her kids watched it drag down a fawn and basically eat it alive. Animals die every day in the forest, and NOTHING is wasted in nature. I'm not pointing a finger of accusation, if the WCO authorized him to tag the deer, then I guess he is not at fault, but let's not put him on a pedestal and applaud him as some kind of coservationist hero for sacrificing his tag for some greater good. No one needed to tag the deer. The PGC estimates a certain perecntage of natural mortality each year, in their management models. Perhaps if we are looking for a definition of sportsmanship, it would be the hunterthat mortally wounds, but fails to recover his deer, to claim the kill, as the law entitles him to only one deer killed per tag....regardless of the fact that the deer was not recovered by the hunter. Theoretically if each hunter who purchased an antlerless tag killed, but failed to recover one deer before killing and tagging an animal, the harvest could greatly exceed the actual goal and severely affect the mgt program. This would be much more "sporting" than tagging a roadkill or victim of other circumstantial mortality.

Main Entry:
sports·man·ship
Pronunciation:
\-ˌship\
Function:
noun
Date:
1745
: conduct (as fairness, respect for one's opponent, and graciousness in winning or losing) becoming to one participating in a sport