Ethics or Obeying the law? What's your choice in this situation...
 

Deer season is NOT in. You are out on an hours-long hike WITHOUT a cell phone to call a conservation officer with. You discover a buck or doe that has both back legs obviously paralyzed. This deer appears to have been injured recently and it cannot drag itself more than 20 feet at a time. You have a handgun or survival knife on your side. WHAT DO YOU DO?

Boys and girls, that's a lot of meat to waste. Do you choose to let the animal suffer for potentially a week or more and just ignore it??

I know what I would do. Do you?

That's a very good question...

I had a similar experience years ago...During late summer I was walking a property I hunted armed with a 22...I saw something move in a bush so stopped and waited for it to come out...turned out to be a fawn that apparently did not see me...to make a long story a bit shorter, the deer was blind...I went back to the farm house and got the owner and we went back out and I caught the fawn...the owner peeled back an eyelid and the deer had been born that way...I offered to shoot the deer but the owner said to let nature take it's course...we found the fawn later in the season, dead of course...had it been my property I would have handled it differently but there you go...

Cheers/bg

Would follow the law,
Otherwise everyone would use such excuses when poaching game.
Every poacher has such excuses when caught

I agree. I never go to the woods without my cell phone. Sometimes I wonder if people ask these questions to try and justify their own actions once they get the answer they want.

So did you shoot the deer and take it or did you leave it go?
After you shot the deer, if you did, did you contact your local CO and notify them?

If you were to shoot it and leave it for the critters, that would be one thing. If you were to shoot it and try to salvage it, then you might get caught, and nothing you say will get you out of prosecution - they have heard all types of excuses. You could get a huge fine and possibly forfeit equipment and hunting rights. Not worth it. Best option would be to call a warden when you get home, give them directions, and let them take care of it - that is what your taxes and license fees pay them to do.

Easy for me...I would put it down, and leave it.

I cant and wont watch em suffer I put it down every time.

Me, I put the deer down. If it costs me a tag, so be it. If I do not have a valid tag, I am going to let nature take it's course. Some state's game law violation penalties are just too steep for me to risk losing my license, equipment or pay a hefty fine. And you have to realize violators have used every excuse in the book which has put the game officers in the mode of ... "no excuses".

When I get to a phone, I'll call DNR and give approximate location ... or meet the officers and take them to where I last saw the deer. And let them handle it.

I ALWAYS would end their suffering. Although a blind deer I would probably leave alone. Yea, it's going to die and it may suffer later but its gotta be cut and dry when I run across the situation. I can't make the call if I THINK its going to suffer down the road.

Shoot it and leave it. Who knows what is wrong with it if it is just crawling around.