Oldtimr

I won't speak for working officers , but when I was still on the job I had a couple of occasions where people tracking a deer found it alive , left someone there and called me, I met them and went to the deer with them and I put the animal down for them and helped them get it out of the woods. I could not in good conscience tell them to kill the animal not knowing them or the circumstances. Luckily I had a base radio so my wife could call me if an emergency phone call came in. This is an ethical quandary and the best advice I can give is call the PGC if it happens to you and be guided by what they say. If someone reports late shooting and an officer responds and finds the person who shot late coming out of the woods or field with a deer the officer may make a decision you would't like.

rockport

Of course he would, you can't just have people shooting at night and claiming the deer was already hit. That opens up a whole host of problems.

Unfortunately I think the solution is making better shots, Had I hit my deer in the lungs rather than the liver I wouldn't had had any problems.

mrbb

making better shots YES solves issue, but nothing in life is perfect

and NOT bashing or looking to picks a fight or debate, just sharing my experience's here
but IF a warden gets called to a LATE Shot,
unless he SEE"S it happen, its an opinion , if pressed to court I would think
there are very few wardens to each county, the odd's are NOT the best one would be near by in all honesty all the more so in peak deer season when they IMO are pretty busy
I am NOT suggesting anyone break the law here
we all owe it to the animal to kill it as fast and cleanly as possible
in my area, I hear countless shots in the dark, both moring and after sunset
I question all them as possible cheaters, but I know of NO one near me that got caught and fined for doing so
idiots here get caught jack lighting from trucks 100 times more often\ STLL 100% wrong

but like I said, you can call, and if told NO help is near and then you do it??
bigger issue I think than if you maybe just do what needs to be done and keep your mouth shut
tag deer and be legal as can be
things happen the real world that issue's like I can see popping up, and poor outcome in Both calling and NOT calling

the 3 instances I have had in the past 7 yrs calling PA game wardens to come dispatch , one rabid fox, , one car hit bear, and a crippled deer
ALL wardens said they be there in 20+30 minutes which ended up in two, with more calls in and every time told ON MY WAY, and then never showing up at all, and the bear, well, that warden did get here, took 4 hrs and then he missed the bear at about 20 ft?
SO< help< ain;t always coming from a phone call
Oldtimr, you might have been a great warden and really cared for your area, but its NOT that way all over PA, and ALL 3 of these cases above happened in different districts, NEVER the same warden!
and I have a few more encounters with PA wardens of like results( I always tired to do right and get help and STILL do)
I AIN"T bashing them I am GLAD we have them, just NOT all had the drive you seemed to for the job and the wildlife!
I wish they did, but??

Oldtimr

mrbb, Generally there will be a blood trail at least for a while when the deer was first shot, that can be found and back tracked to try to verify what a person tells the officer. Officers have to make decisions, that is what they get paid to do, some times it isn't satisfactory to those affected. No system is perfect and sometimes something else comes up where the officer will make a decision on which is more important to be handled right now but in my experience wcos will try to respond to situations like the OP discusses if they can. I know a guy who was trying to cut the throat of a wounded buck because he didn't want to shoot it again. The buck thrashed around and tried to get up while the guy was trying to cut the throat. The guy wound up with a severely cut hand from either the antlers or a hoof and a hand that didn't work right for quite a while. Deer are dangerous animals when they are hurt, they can go from docile to an explosion of movement is a second. The only reason I threw into this post was because it was requested by a member and there is no other answer I could give except the one I gave.

mrbb

oldtimr, I tend to agree with you, and was just stating NOT all wardens handle things the same way, two sides to every coin
following a blood trail back however has little to do with a kill from 15 minutes PAST shooting light to an hr
be super hard to tell the different in time frame of a dead deer, all the more so if it take a while to drag it out and then back track
I went thru ACT 120 police training, so I have some honest aspect into policing side of things
yes discretion is used a lot in many ways, as it should be, most law breakers are lairs, so there had to be some story of a BS tool for officers to use(normally that tool is between the officers ears(brain) LOL)
I am sure we all know in life at times there is a GREY area we tend to end up in now and then, we ALL don't follow every speed limit 100% of the time, doesn't mean we get a ticket every time we go over it, ONLY when caught red handed more or less

I am NOT telling anyone to break any laws, we are all mostly adult here, right and wrong isn;t always the same as legal all the time?
judgement calls to each and there own here?

Game Stalker

Haven't faced this situation, fortunately. Have had others tell me this. One friend told me the deer was found by water and they drowned it, shedding tears while doing so.

MudderChuck

A few things I like about German hunting regulations. They have a list of things that are labeled "duty". They are some things a hunter is required to do. One is putting a severely injured animal out of it's misery. I've put down numerous Deer and Hogs along the highway.

A woman, really attractive, dressed in a business suite/skirt/high heals, hit a Doe with her high end car on a mountain road. I stopped behind her, put up my flashing light and walked up to see what was wrong. She walked up and half squatted near the Doe's head. That Doe heaved a couple of deep breaths, thrashed her front legs, caught that woman by the ankles and she face planted into the highway without getting her arms up to break the fall any, It really messed her up, I could hear the splat from thirty feet. Broke numerous bones in her face, flattened her nose, knocked her out cold. I thought she was going to die, she was having real trouble breathing with all the blood flowing from her broken nose.

The least painful lessons your learn is watching somebody else screw up.

Father Forkhorn

Thanks, Oldtimr. That seems very wise.

nchawkeye

I shoot them, call them in and go about my business...I also carry not only my hunting rifle but a pistol as well when tracking, bears have gotten mighty thick in my area of eastern NC...If the warden wants to give me a ticket so be it, I'm a grown man and will pay it and continue on...In over 50 years of hunting and having tracked hundreds of deer, this has come up maybe 4-5 times...

mrbb

don't forget here folks, IF you cut its throat drown it, or other wise kill it after hours its STILL an illegal kill
so, the above are suggestion to STILL Breaking the game laws in most all states I know of
shooting it MIGHT be the most human way to kill it, but the SHOT /sound is the give away here
to each there own on how they wish to FINISH off a animal
but IF I HAD to be in this situation, I would vote for the fastest ethical way of killing it
IF I GOT caught, I would stand by my decision to do so
TRYING to do it quietly and getting caught might look more to the eye's of the law as you were trying NOT to get caught ( admission of guilt falls into this logic) and not so much doing the right thing, to end the suffering, when the GUN shot might be a faster more human way of doing so, over drowning, stabling??)
we live in a crazy world when things go to court and idiots are on the jury to decide things ?
LOTS of anti hunters out there as is
just food for thought here!