A wounded deer delima

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MCgunner

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I got a call yesterday from my weekend neighbor who was driving in Friday afternoon after work. They live in Houston in the heights and he works at a car dealership doing mostly internet sales. He can sometimes stay a day and work from here as he has hughesnet here. His wife comes on weekends, too.

ANYWAY, he calls me and says to get down the road to another private road intersection, there's a deer stuck in the fence he needs help with. So, I jumped on the ATV and ran down there. The thing had jumped the fence, a goat/hog fence, and somehow got its hind foot caught in the top strand, think maybe from kicking back as it went over the fence. It was a yearling, LOTS of yearling running around. They had a good year last year what with all the acorns. Thinkin' the coyote population is going to climb, especially since the rabbits seem to be at or near the top of their J growth curve. So, then, another weekend neighbor shows up that has the 17 acres other side of me. They had a wire cutter with 'em, so we cut the top strand. The deer then collapses and starts to crawl off, apparently broke its leg or pulled it out of joint. Another truck arrives, it's the guy's son who owns the land adjacent to where the deer was. It's barely able to crawl off, going for the ditch and fence. I told 'em all, "we should put it down". One of 'em says "we need to call a game warden." Well, I was hesitant to put the deer down even though I had the means, a .38 in my right pocket. But, tthese folks are all by the book and I didn't want 'em witnessing anything. I told 'em, the thing is getting away and it's going to suffer unless coyotes put it down in a hurry. The guy who'd driven up who's dad owns the land said "it's our land, I'll take care of it" and got a handgun out of his truck and walked into the woods and shot the poor thing.

It sorta irritated me. YEAH, calling a game warden would be okay, but the deer would be long gone before he could drive from Columbus out here, 20 miles. At some point, you just gotta take care of things. I left, guess the rest of 'em did. I think that guy took the deer as there were no vultures around when we came by after church. I'm hoping he didn't wanna let the meat feed the critters, put it to use, but I wasn't going to do anything that could get ME in trouble. I feel like a wuss for having that attitude, but these folks are all city types except for me and the guy's son who grew up on that land.

Personally, in situations like that, if I'm alone, I do NOT like dealing with game wardens. I'd have put it down and it'd be on ice as I type this. That's against the law of man, but it's the moral thing to do, at least putting the animal down. I guess a case could be made for leaving the meat to the scavengers rather than butchering it.

Again, I had the easy out, didn't have to put ANYthing down. They can't lock ME up. LOL
 
Guess it depends on where you live, thanks to this being such a sparsely populated area, most times, a call to LE or a game warden results in a quick verbal permission to do what needs done and waiting til the gw shows up for confirmation.
 
A friend of mine hit a yearling while heading back to the deer camp, right as the game warden tuned the corner. The game warden told him to put the deer in his truck and not say anything as he did not want to do the paperwork and dispose of the deer. We all understand natural law vs. human law. Sometimes things have to be done the right way and not the "legal" way.
 
I strive to do what is right in life, even the Army had a "reasonable man" clause in their legal system (which says something since the Army isn't know for being reasonable!). Not looking to go to jail but not looking to watch pain and suffering either.
 
I had a similar incident a few years back. A few differences, large doe in the middle of the two lane busy highway. Several stopped vehicles. Doe with broken back. Her fawn standing in the ditch not sure what to do. I was armed but animal was in the middle of the road. Lots of bystanders. So I continued up the road. In a quarter mile I ran into a LEO and pulled up next to him at the gas station. He jumped in and headed to the situation.

Tough to allow an animal to suffer. Cars and deer do not mix.

I think in general, the Game Warden will give you verbal permission to do the right thing.
 
All I'm going to offer is that I do my best to let common sense guide my decisions. Doing everything "by the book" doesn't always work, since every situation isn't in "the book".
 
I suspect that law is intended to impede someone who might poach a deer and if caught say that the deer was injured and they put it out of it's misery. I have shot a couple of deer that were too injured to even get up, much less survive. Never thought much about the legal aspect of it, nor have I ever heard of anybody being charged for doing it.
 
Game wardens in these parts generally interpret the law to the letter. If doing the right thing and the law are at odds, I wouldn't assume that you wouldn't be cited.

A member here has a signature line that makes me chuckle. It goes something like "Game Wardens motto: In God we trust, all others are suspects."
 
horsey300 said:
Guess it depends on where you live, thanks to this being such a sparsely populated area, most times, a call to LE or a game warden results in a quick verbal permission to do what needs done and waiting til the gw shows up for confirmation.
Click to expand...

That's what our wardens do here. I have a couple of their phone numbers and they know me (in a good way). I've had to do this before a couple times. They ask my location, if I have the means, and give verbal permission. No fuss whatsoever.
 
Know your states regulations. You may be doing what you consider the right thing. A friend many years ago shot a wounded deer on the street in Casper, Wyoming.
He was arrested for taking a deer with an illegal hunting caliber a .38 Special. Taking game without a permit out of season. Discharging a firearm on the city streets. The judge dropped all charges.:thumbup: But LEOs have to enforce the laws?:thumbup:
 
It's one of those tough calls. One is tempted to do the right thing, which is put the animal down and go on about ones business... but when you are in a crowd of people you can never trust them to just keep their trap shut, so a call must be made. I know our local warden would have told us to put it down, but you never know what another warden might say.

Hope someone called the landowner first and they didn't just roll up on the scene. I know, around us, rolling up on someone cutting your fence is a much bigger issue than if someone called the game warden.
 
ClickClickD'oh said:
It's one of those tough calls. One is tempted to do the right thing, which is put the animal down and go on about ones business... but when you are in a crowd of people you can never trust them to just keep their trap shut, so a call must be made. I know our local warden would have told us to put it down, but you never know what another warden might say.

Hope someone called the landowner first and they didn't just roll up on the scene. I know, around us, rolling up on someone cutting your fence is a much bigger issue than if someone called the game warden.
Click to expand...

The folks that own the fence used to live there, but in the last 4 or 5 years, they've been gone most of the time. I think the guy works in the oil patch. We only cut to top wire of it, though. It's hog/goat wire, not barbed wire, so it's still in tact. It's right in the corner, too, where the corner posts are, so it's not really damaged.
 
There is what is called "the spirit of the law" - what was the law intended to prevent or protect? In many cases one can "break" the written law without violating the spirit of the law. Then there is the doctrine of "competing harms" - the lesser of two evils where one "breaks" a law in order to prevent a greater harm. The latter does not apply in it's defined sense of two written laws; rather in this case the second competing "law" is a moral one.
 
You have the proper heart, so did the fellow who downed the deer. Waiting a long amount of time as the animal suffered, for the GW to arrive would not have been humane.

As to the aftermath, there are a bunch of scenarios. You never can tell, and the best thing was to put it down and then to process it into frozen meat (less evidence ;)) You just might have ended up with a judge who thinks that to be humane, and to comply with the law, you should've caught the thing and taken it to a vet, and paid the bill, if you ended up in court because you called a GW..., and if the GW was an over zealous, eager beaver, OR if the GW had a micro-managing supervisor with a policy of "write everybody". :eek:

LD
 
While putting down the deer was right thing to do ethically, it may very well have been illegal. With the advent of today's cell phones, a call to the warden or local LEA is easy and quick. In my area, many times, the official on the line, after taking your location and name, will tell you to go ahead and put the animal down if it can be done safely, thus eliminating any legal hassles.
 
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Dealing with Conservation Officers is a pain. The ones here in Pennsylvania are
way out of line and starving to give out tickets. They will make up a reason to give
a ticket knowing that you are not going to get a lawyer and fight it because the
ticket is cheaper than a lawyer.
Zeke
 
Problem: Deer caught in fence, will not survive, will have a long death and be ate by coyotes- maybe even before death. Solution: Shoot deer, take deer away, eat deer. Action: Describe problem and solution to others present. Ask if anyone has a problem or feels a need to report situation. If answer is "no", proceed. If answer is "yes", call GW and whatever happens happens. Have dissenting individual watch dying animal in the interim.
 
In Kansas, you're obligated to call and obligated to request a carcass recovery tag before taking any animal for meat or fur. There are a few conflicting sentiments in our state, but in general, common sense prevails.

Our state W&PD recognizes humans as part of the ecosystem, so car-struck deer which make it back to cover are considered part of the natural cycle. Might not make anyone feel good, but nobody should be so naive to believe every car-struck deer has a quick and humane death. So that is one position.

When you DO call the warden, or rather W&P law enforcement officer, if they are too far away, they'll often dispatch a county officer or local police from a nearby town, whoever is closest and makes the most sense. If none of these are available in a timely response, in my experience, they will condone a civilian to humanely kill the animal if safe means are available.

If you want to keep any part of a road-struck big game animal - or that from any other means of death - you're obligated to get a carcass tag. Any LEO can issue these, which absolves you of any poaching charge which might be brought if you were found with the remains later. For these tags, the entirety of the animal must be taken, and the tag must remain with the carcass until processed. Just the same as required for hunted game.

It's really not that difficult to manage. I've had officers agree to meet me at home instead of on the road, to save both of us time.

I'd personally say your reticence to work with game wardens is part of the problem. They're people too, and as long as you operate within the law, you don't have any reason to not work with them. There ARE considerations where wardens aren't motivated to approve a roadside killing, as a guy might spotlight a buck, then run over it with his truck to make it look good, then say he hit it first... So they generally do want to bear witness to the animal before it's killed, but in my experience, common sense tends to rule the day when you use common sense yourself.
 
Another consideration, I forgot to mention - Kansas is aware, as I am sure many other states are, of the additional hazard represented when a road struck carcass remains near the roadway.

In literal terms, a road struck animal which survives to crawl far away from the roadway presents less of a hazard than one which dies on or near the road. Anything which draws animals to the roadway is a problem. So if you do put the animal down, resource officers want you to further take care of the animal. You've now taken responsibility for the carcass, so then dragging it into the woods represents criminal trespass, since you're trespassing during the commission of different crimes, which are illegal dumping and wanton waste laws. Generally around here, if you call the game officers about putting down a road struck deer, they'll haul the carcass away if you don't want to keep it. That way it avoids any wanton waste issues, or subsequent scavenger car-strikes.
 
Calling a game warden would have been a waste of time. The deer made it to thick cover before anyone could pull out a cell phone. It'd crawled a mile or more at least through heavy cover before a Warden would have showed up.

And, I'll tell ya this, I'll let the coyotes feast and the danged deer suffer before I'll spend a dime on a lawyer.

In the end, the right thing was done I think.
 
Doing the "right thing" in my area means that there are absolutely NO witnesses anywhere to report it. Almost everyone in this area are transplanted urbanites from northern large cities.
Also, the game wardens here tend to try their best to write up anyone they can for any reason they can. The only one with common sense retired about 8 years ago.
 
Loyalist Dave said:
You have the proper heart, so did the fellow who downed the deer. Waiting a long amount of time as the animal suffered, for the GW to arrive would not have been humane.

As to the aftermath, there are a bunch of scenarios. You never can tell, and the best thing was to put it down and then to process it into frozen meat (less evidence ;)) You just might have ended up with a judge who thinks that to be humane, and to comply with the law, you should've caught the thing and taken it to a vet, and paid the bill, if you ended up in court because you called a GW..., and if the GW was an over zealous, eager beaver, OR if the GW had a micro-managing supervisor with a policy of "write everybody". :eek:

LD
Click to expand...

You just hit on my distrust of wildlife officers. :D I'd rather not involve them if possible. Out here, it's possible. Nobody comes down here except if they have land.

So, you say, SBS? That'd be Shoot, Butcher, and Shut up? :D
 
Varminterror said:
I'd personally say your reticence to work with game wardens is part of the problem. They're people too. . .
Click to expand...

No, they're not people, not when they're on duty. They're agents of the state, with tremendous, arbitrary power, and very little institutional motivation to be reasonable. The fact that most are reasonable doesn't diminish the potential legal damage you might suffer, without meaningful recourse, from someone unreasonable.

MCgunner said:
I'll tell ya this, I'll let the coyotes feast and the danged deer suffer before I'll spend a dime on a lawyer.
Click to expand...

Hit the nail on the head; no animal is worth a potentially legally damaging interaction with LE. Let nature take it's course.
 
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