13 yr old poses ethics question...

[wankerjake]

I would just like to know which crime you would then choose to commit AFTER the accident occurred. Would you leave the game animal to waste in the field or would you sneak it out and transport the contraband?

At least, both are crimes here, and it isn't too difficult to be caught in the act of either. As much as I agree with not involving the authorities in my personal parenting duties, I don't want to blatantly commit a crime in front of my children and have them think that it is okay.

Your thoughts...

I hear you. It's a sticky situation for sure, and I'm not saying it's wrong to turn your kid in. That's you decision as a parent and I won't fault you for that. It's your kid, not mine. I'm think either decision can be correct. I just personally wouldn't do it. Either way the hunt would probably be over for my kid. A lesson needs to be learned that shooting the wrong animal is not to be tolerated and is not OK. It's a preventable accident. I just think that lesson can be taught by myself.

Regarding the meat...the attitude wouldn't be "we are commiting a crime." It would be more like "you screwed up and now we have to get the meat out." It would depend on the situation and how likely it would be to get it out without being caught. Sticky situation.

 

[CoRoMo]

I completely agree with your first paragraph.

The thing is, where/how I hunt, getting the meat out is a half day's job. There'll be plenty of time for the kid to ask, "Dad, what happens if the warden stops us with this deer/elk?". The time it takes to get an animal out, is enough time for him/her to realize that we are breaking the law. If we get it all back to the house and I punish him/her for their mistake, they still know that we then broke the law to cover it up.

...how likely it would be to get it out without being caught.

I don't want my kids to think it's okay to weigh those odds. That's my hangup. That's what makes me think that I might prefer to turn them in. I don't know. I would absolutely hate it and it would go against everything inside me. I would not want to turn them in at all.

 

[cls12vg30]

I'm not a hunter, and haven't fished since I was a teenager. But the idea of turning my child in to the authorities for a mistake like this makes my head spin. If I took my son hunting, you can bet he would be well versed in the relevant regulations, and the reasons for them. If he shot an illegal animal by mistake, he would deal with me for his mistake. If he did so on purpose, he would deal with me in a very different situation. But turn him in to government authorities? Inconceivable! (And it does mean what I think it means.)

 

[buck460XVR]

A lesson needs to be learned that shooting the wrong animal is not to be tolerated and is not OK. It's a preventable accident. I just think that lesson can be taught by myself.

If this situation arises it is because that lesson was NOT taught.....or the importance was not emphasized enough. Odds are, you HAVE taught the lesson correctly and the situation will not arise. I know as a kid I passes up opportunities many a time because I was not sure. I would have gladly faced a game warden and explained a mistaken identity long before I had to face my dad. It was the fear of my dad's repercussions that made me take the time and make sure. I got a feelin' my kids feel the same way. Sorry, but blowin' it off as an accident and walkin' away from it teaches another lesson. In this case I don't think it's a case of turnin' your kid in as a criminal. It's about makin' your kid fess up and take responsibility for his mistakes. I know many here have a big distrust of law enforcement people, but from my experience, this is not a situation that will result in a fine or a loss of license or guns.....especially when it's a youth that's involved. It's a case of letting the proper authorities know there was a mistake made and giving them the opportunity to retrieve the game or to give you legal possession.

Regarding the meat...the attitude wouldn't be "we are commiting a crime." It would be more like "you screwed up and now we have to get the meat out." It would depend on the situation and how likely it would be to get it out without being caught. Sticky situation.

Again...in most states, taking the meat or leaving it lay is a crime. Either way, you are compounding a simple mistake by committing a crime. In doing so in front of your child, you are telling him/her it is okay.


In the hunter safety class I help teach, we teach young and old alike that ethics is doing the right thing when no one else is around. We spend one class period with the local game warden in attendance. During the question and answer period with the warden, this question comes up often. The answer is always the same. As long as the warden decides it was an honest mistake, and it was a mistake of legal sex or age of a hunt able species, most times it's matter of a harsh warning and the retrieval of the game. Generally the wardens would rather know and have this chance to retrieve the carcass as to leave it to rot in the woods.

 

[CoRoMo]

Well... as thorough a teacher as I can be to my kids, they WILL make mistakes. Not because the teaching didn't occur, just because they are human.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I would just like to know which crime you would then choose to commit AFTER the accident occurred. Would you leave the game animal to waste in the field or would you sneak it out and transport the contraband?

I'm not leaving a game animal in the woods to rot after it's shot. To me, that's a worse offense than making a mistake in the field. Wasting a game animal is abominable to me. If you kill it, you eat it. (With the obvious exception of predators and nusiance animals. I don't think anyone is gonna eat a yote).

 

[suzukisam]

since when does the state or federal government decide what is or isn't moral?
I'm an ethical hunter and the thought of wanton waste makes me mad....BUT Accidents do happen and to all of you who say you have to be sure of what your shooting your right.. partly. sometimes accidents do happen.. for example the duck regulations have gotten to the point you can't hardly tell what to shoot anymore. I can tell a species of duck by the sound it makes and the way it flies, half the time you don't even need to see the birds colors to tell. but what happens when there was one woody flying with 6 mallards, and you accidentally clip it? most of the time I can't identify every bird in the flock I just shoot the ones I do identify. The local game warden, and there is only one where I duck hunt is the biggest A hole you've ever met. he waits till about 5 minutes after legal shooting time and drives his four wheeler through our spread and spends 45 minutes going through every pocket of your vest and opening every box of ammo and reading each shell just hoping you got one in your box that wasn't steel. I've been through this several times... he ruins your morning hunt every time. Now I'm all about game laws, but when did the governments right to search you become higher than your right to hunt in peace! also would you report you shot one too many woody's to that guy? I won't and didn't! I hated it and would much rather have had it go to good use, but the guy is a control freak looking for an excuse to confiscate your guns and impound your truck! We watched him do it to a guy for forgetting his plug in his shotgun.

So if the conservation department says that you can't shoot anymore 30 minutes before it gets dark is that automatically the moral shooting time? because they said so? I stop then because it's not worth the hassle for me, but I don't exactly think they should decide such things. I don't like the government as a general rule, and when GW has the power to search your person and vehicle without cause I think things have gone too far!

 

[suzukisam]

also I just wanted to point out that I think some people have their ethics twisted.. you can shoot a coyote, possum, skunk, or any other nuisance and there is no MORAL obligation to these animal. yet if someone walk away from a duck or deer or improper gender of quail or other bird. it is a MORAL travesty.. they are all animals....

 

[leadcounsel]

since when does the state or federal government decide what is or isn't moral?

Bingo!

It's too bad that the fat government agencies have created an "US vs. THEM" environment. How many times have you been unfairly fined, taxed, ticketed, towed, etc... ?? It just creates this survival environment that isn't a moral question at all... Nobody here, including me, is saying that you should intentionally violate the law or skirt the system, but taking the 5th Amendment (you know, the one that comes shortly after the 2nd) is your right. Why anyone would incriminate themselves, rat out their family, or teach your kid to incriminate himself is beyond me...

A parent should teach his kid the valuable lessons in life; including identifying the right animal to hunt with his tag and also including following the law, but also knowing when to shut his mouth!

 

[suzukisam]

It's too bad that the fat government agencies have created an "US vs. THEM" environment. How many times have you been unfairly fined, taxed, ticketed, towed, etc... ?? It just creates this survival environment that isn't a moral question at all.

agreed! also on a side note the immorality is only consequential based on the law.. you put enough laws on the books that break hunting seasons up into a couple day increments where you can shoot one of these this week, and one of those next week, anything the week after that, and on the last week of the season if you can bludgeon one with a stick you can keep it but otherwise you can't.. now if you act outside anyone of those rediculous parameters we enter a moral injustice? I'm all about game preservation, but a lot of conservation has gotten way out of bounds! like how many shells you can use to shoot rabbits with in your shotguns...really? deer season sucked this year you get 10 days to shoot a buck and yet for two or three months their splattered all over the highway? I don't get it! The conservation department puts a lot of uneeded pressure on hunters to make snap decisions in the field! I just don't like the bureaucracy of the system and then tell me I'm immoral because I freakin messed up trying not to lose out on my one weekend out of the year I can even shoot a nice deer!

 

[grubbylabs]

Apples to oranges. Nobody was talking about deliberately shooting game out of season. What was being talked about was a kid shooting a doe instead of a buck or visa versa. I don't think that is a "felony" in any state.

When you shoot an animal out of season and don't report it, it can become a felony depending on the animal and area you are hunting. So it is apples to apples.

And in the process of either leaving the animal or packing it out you are again committing another crime which both are equally bad in my opinion. You are either wasting game if you leave the animal there. Or if you pack it out you are poaching the animal- illegally taking it out of season. Great example for your kid.

Again, the discussion is about minor and accidental game infractions, killing a buck for a doe or the reverse. A dead deer is a dead deer. There is little moral difference between killing a buck or a doe, the only difference is regulatory one. In the past few years much of east texas has gone to a minimum antler spread required on bucks for them to be legal to shoot. Errors on judging that are exactly the same sort of deal, and believe me plenty of people make errors in judging spread while dealing with buck fever. Is that the end of the world? No. Am I or should I turn someone in for something like that if they are not all boasting about it and shooting technically illegal game on purpose? No. The point of government isn't to harass people for an occasional honest mistake, and good friends and neighbors don't take it upon themselves to call the law in over things that aren't that big of a deal anyway. Common sense must be applied, and it isn't common sense to drag the law into it every time someone violates a minor regulation accidentally.

While I did not grow up in a shooting family I was still taught to know what it is you are shooting. Once you pull the trigger its game over. So to me it is a big deal what someone is shooting at. The mistake is made for the same reason people shoot others while hunting they don't pay attention to what they are shooting. If you are that relaxed about people shooting at unidentified targets, I hope to never be on a range with you or out in the same woods you shoot at animals in while I am hunting.

 

[TexasPatriot.308]

with the price of gas etc. if you can afford the fine...turn him in..if not starve for a week..

 

[suzukisam]

Grubby- there is a big difference in shooting a person and not being able to count every tine on its head...in mo almost the whole state has a four point restriction, which means you have to basically look for an 8 pointer, and the points only count if they are a certain lenth! That is a way bigger determination to make than whether its a human or not you comment is exagerative and ignorant!

 

[jbkebert]

Grubby- there is a big difference in shooting a person and not being able to count every tine on its head...in mo almost the whole state has a four point restriction, which means you have to basically look for an 8 pointer, and the points only count if they are a certain lenth! That is a way bigger determination to make than whether its a human or not you comment is exagerative and ignorant!

Oh how I beg to differ with your last sentence. While hunting is one of the safest sports out there people do get hurt or dead. I get a shiney little report at the beginning of every year. This report list every reported hunting accident from the previous year. The determined cause and outcome from each incidents investiagtion.

The #1 cause of accidental shooting in the nation not just Kansas is swinging on game. Not staying in your zone of fire.

The #2 cause of accidental shooting in this country is mistaken idenity of game. This generally peaks during Turkey season but Deer season claims the lives of folks every year. People sitting in stands or in blinds for several hours thinking about deer start to see deer that are not there. That person lost in a daydream about a trophey buck sees movement and fires.

DO not even begin to tell me that people getting shot is not a problem. Granted it happens about 6 times a year in the US where someone is killed. The number of people injured is far more. So the above comment is far from out of line.

By the way if your wearing brown carharts during deer season how stupid are you?? That seems to be the #1 outfit of people who are shot during deer season.

 

[suzukisam]

DO not even begin to tell me that people getting shot is not a problem. Granted it happens about 6 times a year in the US where someone is killed. The number of people injured is far more. So the above comment is far from out of line.

never said people don't get shot, and I also never said that stupid people don't hunt. I never even said I don't know some people I wouldn't hunt with for this reason.

What I did say was that trying to say that accidentally shooting an 8 point buck that is "illegal", cause one tine was an eighth of an inch too short, is a far cry from saying your a people shooter. listen I shot a button buck this year, at 200 yrds I couldn't see the little nubs. Now technically my deer was legal, because one of our more sane laws understands that this is a very hard determination to make. but saying I might have shot a person, who should be wearing an orange vest AND hat (in MO) is insulting and stupid! the game laws get very picky and can be very tedious to abide by. And as much as I do not like a lot of the laws because I am an honest so I try my best to abide by them, but I'm not turning myself in if an honest mistake is made!

oh an just on a side note with as restrictive as game laws are now, I'm not sure how you could even shoot a person unless your just a completely reckless person or someone who wasn't supposed to be there got hit by some random ricochet, and that seems less likely than just complete negligence.. this thread is not about people being all willy nilly in the woods it's about honest mistakes by beginners, and even us seasoned hunters

 

[jbkebert]

This is a prime example of what is wrong with society, no one is taught to be accountable any more. If you do it wrong own up to it.

I agree with this statement 100%. Yes mistakes happen. But to break the law trying to cover up the mistake how the heck does this make anything better. Like in any profession there are A-hole F&G officers just like there are A-hole cashiers at the grocery store. Most of the F&G officers are pretty down to earth and wether or not to issue a citation is a discretionary choice made by them.

I am troubled by the fact that alot of the post I am reading regaurd NRO's as the man with a shiney pair of boots that they can't wait to hold you down with. My lord give me a break. The man ain't trying to keep to poor foks down. I think a few to many zombie threads, conspiricy theroies, and Al Sharpton followers around.

 

[SPW1]

I think some are harping a bit to much on "know your target". It "sounds" good on the surface but some seem to have unrealistic expectations on the finer details of quick game identification, and act like anyone making a minor mistake in that area is a unsafe hunter and the moral equivalent to a hunter randomly firing at noises in the brush. It just seems to me that those that cannot understand such a mistake might not have hunted a whole lot yet. I bet a large % of the board that has deer hunted for very long has at one point in time or another shot a button buck thinking it was a doe, shot a buck that turned out to be bigger or smaller, have more points or less points than they thought and perhaps if hunting over a feeder or something they may have accidentally struck a second or different animal from the intended target due to bodies being perfectly aligned and the other animal not being seen, fading light, or sudden movements. Sometimes those minor mis-identifications and accidents make the game shot illegal and sometimes they don't, but any hunter who thinks something like that can never happen to him because he is "careful" probably doesn't do much game shooting. Claiming or implying something like that is akin to claiming that you never miss or never make a less than ideal hit. Are some people very skilled and very careful and end up missing or making a bad hit only very rarely? You bet, but those who "never" do it at all usually have only shot a fairly small number of game animals. You keep at it long enough and you will. It isn't necessarily incompetence or negligence, it is just life.

agree with this statement 100%. Yes mistakes happen. But to break the law trying to cover up the mistake how the heck does this make anything better.

Failure to report is not the same as "covering up". We are not all cops or game officers and it isn't our duty to report every little thing to them if it isn't a big deal in the first place. The idea that the citizen has a duty to report every little regulatory infraction anyone makes to the government is a nanny state big government concept in my humble opinion.

am troubled by the fact that alot of the post I am reading regaurd NRO's as the man with a shiney pair of boots that they can't wait to hold you down with. My lord give me a break. The man ain't trying to keep to poor foks down. I think a few to many zombie threads, conspiricy theroies, and Al Sharpton followers around.

No they aren't all bad, but enough of them are and enough people have been kicked around by them without just cause to where many people are understandably reluctant to involve a game warden they don't know personally.

 

[Cranky CJ]

The question poses ethical decisions at several levels; call DOW or not. Leave the bad shoot to rot in the woods or not. Pack it out and not call, and attemt to cover it up. All decisions will be watched closely by your child. Ah, decisions, decisions...and the explainations to your child for yours.

 

[jbkebert]

Failure to report is not the same as "covering up". We are not all cops or game officers and it isn't our duty to report every little thing to them if it isn't a big deal in the first place. The idea that the citizen has a duty to report every little regulatory infraction anyone makes to the government is a nanny state big government concept in my humble opinion.

I agree and disagree with you here. Now I am not saying that the slighest infraction is grounds for turning your kid or your buddy in. I don't think any of us are the hall monitors. What I am saying is if a animal was taken illegally by accident or not. How is it not legal not to report it. If you transsport the illegal game you have broken the law. If you leave it to feed the yotes you have broken the law. So your darned if you do and darned if you don't.

Lord knows I have made my share of mistakes in the field. i have misjudged yardage and put a poor shot on two deer. i have also sent a arrow right under a deer and right over a hog. A mistake does not make you a unsafe hunter or a people killer by anymeans. However honest mistakes no matter how trivial could have the potential to become much more than a honest mistake. The comments made by myself and grubbylabs may have been mistaken for more than what they were.

There is nothing i want to see more than young hunters in the field. That is why I donate 2 to 3 hundred hours a year volunteering as a He instructor. It is something that i care very much about. Only 8% of our population are hunters. 3% of the population are anti's so the remaining 89% decide our fate. If that 89% decides that hunters are not safe do not adhere to game laws. I can gosh darn assure you they can remove our rights to hunt.

 

[langenc]

We had one around here that would have written up his mother if his plate of beans was two short.

Another checked the fishing license of a friend, ice fishing, 4 out of 5 days??
He had to walk 1/2 mile onto the ice to do the check. My friend drove the same vehicle all days.

 

[lizziedog1]

since when does the state or federal government decide what is or isn't moral?

We are the government. Last I looked, we are not a dictatorship or a monarchy.

 

[grubbylabs]

What do you mean "since when has the government decided what is or isn't moral"? the Constitution gives them the police power and they have been deciding what is moral since the beginning. Why do you think they control or prohibit gambling, porn, hookers, booze, and tobacco?

Let alone what time of year, what sex, and time between dark we can shoot. Moral choices controlled by the state.

 

[jbkebert]

Laws, morals, and ethics are not the same thing. just because something is not ethical does not mean it is illegal.

A prime example is long range hunting. While this can be perfectly legal and perfectly ethical. A person taking a long range shot who is not a profiecent marksman at long ranges while not breaking any laws is certainly not making a ethical choice. Someone who takes the time to master the skill of longrange shooting doesn't just read the newest article in outdoor life or watch some video is doing absolutly nothing wrong.

Morals and ethics are guidlines for who we are and how we go through life. These guidlines vary depending on background and geographic regions as well as ethnic or religious diffrences.

Laws are established to govern the body as a whole. if something is deemed illegal regaurdless if you agree or not. An ethic is what you beleive to be right or wrong. My set of ethics is diffrent than someone elses and it is a very hard thing to say ones ethics are better than anothers. Bottom line is if something is wrong that little voice should be slapping the crap out of you to make it right. Failing to report or covering up how ever you want to say it does nothing to reinforce the morals and ethics we try to pass along to our children.

 

[suzukisam]

What do you mean "since when has the government decided what is or isn't moral"? the Constitution gives them the police power and they have been deciding what is moral since the beginning. Why do you think they control or prohibit gambling, porn, hookers, booze, and tobacco?

Let alone what time of year, what sex, and time between dark we can shoot. Moral choices controlled by the state.

so your okay with abortion, prostitution, gay marriage, and marijuana? it's all legal in some form or another somewhere in our country? NO I'm guessing your not. The government does not decide morality, they decide what is socially acceptable behavior!

As far as hunting goes they are only supposed to make decisions based on game preservation and hunting safety, and even those they have over stepped. They do not decide what is moral. if you take law as morality you have replaced the bible with the constitution, and or game laws. Or whatever book you govern your moral code with. shooting a doe during buck season is not immoral, it is illegal, and it is in bad taste if you do it intentionally.

We are the government. Last I looked, we are not a dictatorship or a monarchy.

We should be, but you and i know better than that. If we are the government we wouldn't be constantly fighting ourselves for our god given right to protect ourselves

 

[Art Eatman]

And now we have abortion mentioned?

Way more than enough!