Ethics......

[Dave McCracken]

Pop cussed when the guys 300 yards away in another blind opened up on some geese still too high.The geese kept going though one was now struggling to keep up. It went down finally way out near the horizon. The skybusters made no attempt to retrieve it.....

That goose has been mercifully dead for 40 years. Still, when hunting ethics come up, that memory surfaces.

Ethics are what we do when no one's watching, or as in the case of those skybusters, we don't care if someone is watching.

We're the only predators that think. Intelligence has taken us from the veld to the Moon. That intelligence has come up with many fine things, including the Parthenon,Democracy,Cathedrals, indoor plumbing and 870s.

But ethically, lots of us haven't climbed down from the trees.

A GOB at work the other day bragged on jacking deer back home. His 4X4 Bubba truck had a gun rack and NRA bumper sticker.

A chance encounter at the range with a silver haired gent ended when he spoke of a duck hunt that went over the limit by about 10 mallard hens.

I'm sure you can think of a few examples. No area of human endeavor is free of slobs, hogs and outlaws.

The Bozo Factor is pandemic. It only takes one clown to $%^&*( it up for everyone....

Let's not be someone else's bad example.

It's one thing to miss a shot, it's another to Hail Mary one way out there because the birds aren't decoying well.

And few folks will rag you if you pass up a chancy shot.

Know the limits, know the laws. Know YOUR limits, and learn to judge range.

Here's a hint on that last. If you think it might be too far, it is. If you know it's in range, it is.

And with shotguns, there's no equivalent to ultra light fishing tackle. Using "Not Enough Gun", choke or load on something that can crawl off hurting instead of dying quickly is some weird mind game.

Maybe a 410 can be used on Giant Canada Geese humanely under some conditions with some shooters, but if you're wrong something will suffer needlessly.

Dismounting from the pulpit....

 

[1557]

A good post,and I totally agree. Ethics in every field seem to have fallen by the wayside.In our sport,it's up to good sportsmen to keep ethics alive ,or at least try to resuscitate it, by example.

 

[TrapperReady]

Dave - Good post.

As for:

Ethics in every field seem to have fallen by the wayside.

I'm not so sure about that. I think it is very common and natural for each generation to yearn for "the way it was" and fondly remember the good old days. However, in doing so, we often forget about the problems from the past.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, market hunting drove numbers down incredibly fast. Some species recovered after a long time. Some didn't. It wasn't at all unknown for some market hunters to continue their trade after it became illegal.

I heard slob hunter stories and tales of poaching from my dad and his friends... and he last fired a shotgun at game sometime in the early '60s. In fact, the incident that made him give up deer hunting was getting shot at because some guy "thought he heard a deer over that way". He said flat out that the Nazis didn't kill him in Europe, and he sure wasn't going to let some moron shoot him in upstate New York.

Frankly, I see fewer shot up roadsigns and such now than I did growing up over 30 years ago. Now, I don't have any statistics about whether things actually are worse now or not. In many respects, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that each of us conduct ourselves in a responsible manner and set a good example for our kids, our hunting partners and the general public.

 

[SigfanUSAF]

I grew up in Maine. I spent a lot of time in the woods, both hiking and, in season, hunting. The Moose were plentiful up there, but you entered a "lottery" to get a permit. I can't tell you how many quarted moose I saw while hunting deer. A lot while the seasons were long over too. I had an encounter with two bull moose while hunting deer once, they were standing in a clearing. I walked up on them not knowing they were there until I was 15 to 20 feet away. It was very intimidating, but never once even thought about raising my Enfield, as I didn't have a permit (honestly, I wouldn't have shot if I did). The moose went on their way, and they left me with a beautiful memory of the Maine woods. It wasn't two days later I saw another moose head. It's a shame people can't respect the ethics involved with this age old past time.

 

[Ed Ames]

Then there was the hunter safety course "ethics" instructor who, about half-way through his lecture on "ethics" (which weren't ethics but public relations... how to avoid annoying fellow hunters or disturbing... "bunny huggers" was the term he used IIRC) he breaks off to give tips on how to cheat on the test at the end of the class because "I know a lot of you, especially the kids, are here for the season opener and I don't want anyone left behind...." That was this year.

That was an old dude who probably thought himself quite the roll model for young hunters. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

Personally, I think youngsters today are among the most ethical and morally centered people ever born in America... just as the previous generation was the best the country had offered up to their time. And every generation has had the old codgers claiming they were degenerates who would destroy humanity and unleash Satan's wrath or something similar. That's just the problem with people over 40. They can't help it...their brains are rotting. Just be patient with them and try not to give them any power over you.

 

[1911Tuner]

Models

Quote:

>That was an old dude who probably thought himself quite the roll model for young hunters.<
**************
That would be..."Role"...model, young fella.

Cheers!

 

[sm]

Dave,
Great post.

Ruark shared in "The Old Man And The Boy" how the ethics of hunting and appreciation of the outdoors mirrors how a person conduct themselves in other life matters.
That theme is repeated in Ruark's other works as well.

Repect the quail , always respect the quail... - Ruark

 

[Thin Black Line]

Ethics in every field seem to have fallen by the wayside.

This is a reflection of society as a whole and does seem to ebb and flow
with the attitudes of the times.

I've run into more than my fair share of poachers, trespassors, etc. A
former neighbor who just shot a deer was walking over to retrieve it
when some guy crossed the tree line and began dragging it back over.
My neighbor said that was his deer at which point the other guy pointed
his shotgun at him and asked which was more important --him or the
deer.

We're suppose to wear orange during deer season and there's quite a few
people around here who don't because they trespass. Plenty of shots and
puffs of smoke from treelines clearly visible from the roads, no one dot of
orange visible anywhere, no one wearing it when they're walking around,
and DNR does little enforcement of it.

I imagine with idiots threatening to shoot people over downed game that
DNR isn't going to risk themselves over color in the field.

Oh well. That's the times we're in.

 

[Biker]

I remember, oh, maybe 20 years ago, I took a shot at a nice mulie buck waaaay across Inman canyon. He was well out of my personal shooting range but I couldn't pass that one up. I pulled the trigger and maybe a second later I heard the thump and watched him twist in a manner that suggested a gut shot.
He took off running into a bunch of buck brush and I lost sight of him.

After two days, I gave up looking for him. I felt so bad I gave up big game hunting for three years.
Since then, I keep my shots within range. That was a painful lesson.

Biker

 

[Dave McCracken]

Thanks, folks. A couple things...

We're all role models, whether we wish it or not. This is a situation where we're part of the solution or just part of the problem.

Poacher's orange,as it's called is an orange hat that can be removed easily and hidden when one wants to be un-noticed. Still common.

FYI, DNR cops are the only branch of law enforcement that sees the officers shot at more than the police of our inner cities. Most folks they deal with are armed and some are drunk.

Market hunting still goes on. They keep busting people over on The Eastern Shore running refrigerated semi trailers full of deer and geese up to New York's many restaurants. And casual outlawtry still thrives, where people have been teaching their children to watch out for the game warden for centuries.

Amd to paraphrase Aldo Leopold, " Hunters perform their rituals often alone, with no spectators to observe and judge their actions. The importance of this cannot be over-emphasized"....

 

[John Peddie]

Good post, Dave, and timely too.

Sad part is that the people who need to hear this most won't be on this forum.

Ethics can't be passed on in pamphlets from our game and fish departments. They are learned first hand as a kid with a wise mentor as trainer and guide.

Meanwhile, yahoos can only raise more yahoos.

Take a kid hunting and pass it on person to person. Those lessons will stick for life.

 

[PJR]

With the seasons open or approaching it's an excellent reminder.

I was pheasant hunting several years ago when a guy in our group who I'd just met suprised me when he shot at a pheasant that was well beyond what I thought was a responsible range. Fortunately for him the cockbird dropped stone dead. The distance from where he stood to where the dog picked up the bird lasered at 85 yards.

When one of the guys congratulated him on his great shooting he responded forcefully, "No sir, I screwed up. That was too damn far. I was lucky and shouldn't have taken that shot."

We've became good friends that day. And I've never seen him shoot at a distant bird again.

 

[Hoppy590]

i go shooting with a bunch of guys like that, who will wing a bird and talk about waht a "great shot" it is and just walk off leaving a wounded bird. i cant stand that and tend to abstain from thier junk bird hunts in the corn fields.

 

[kennyboy]

Way to tell everyone! I always hunt ethically and try to live every part of my life honestly and ethically. I wish that more people would have a guilty conscience and morals that would help prevent them from braking the law or doing something improper.

 

[Nathan Williams]

Yes I know what you mean. A friend of my dads is like that (I hate this guy by the way). He goes out every year shoots as many bucks as he can find, takes the rack, and leaves the rest to rot. As bad as this sounds I kinda hope this guy has a accident one day, it would serve him right .

 

[MARINEUS]

I hunted Caribou in Alaska several years ago with a group of friends. It was a guided hunt and the guide was a local who was a close friend of one of our group. Mid-day one of the hunters shows up at camp with some meat in a sack and a real nice Caribou rack. Everyone sands around admiring the nice rack of the first animal taken. Then our guide says "where's the rest of him", why out there responded our hunter friend. "well go get the rest of him" says our guide "hell, I can't go back there it near four miles where I shot him". "you do not have a choice says our guide", "as a matter of fact taking these horns is an illegal act here in Alaska if you can't account for the meat to go along with them". Drop jawed our friend exclamed his inability to return for his legs and particuallly his heart would have no more of the difficult tundra. After two miles or so four of us were back in camp with this hunters meat all packed tightly in 80 pound sacks we had literaly skinned the ribs from ths animal. I was fifty then and still learning good lessons.

 

[Len]

Dave,

I appreciate your post and timing!

The downright immoral behavior that's been mentioned here, is, I think, a symptom of evil men who enjoy killing rather than hunting. Or, value ego over ethics. Those who would rather brag about impossibly long shots than ponder the dozens of wounded animals thoughtlessly left in agony to die.

I've had to do canine first aid on my dogs, who, while running around in my barnyard were dusted with birdshot by a stranger, out of any type of hunting season, on posted property!

Those same dogs have found hopelessly wounded deer in the woods, again, out of season, on posted property, one with a crossbow bolt still lodged through the pelvis! It's blood trail was evidence that she'd become incapacitated within 50 yards of impact.

I've lost count of the number of poached animals on or near the farm. I've lost count of the number of predators killed, no matter how rare in these parts...simply because they're "there." Up to and including a bald eagle. [Yep, reports filed on each and every one! FWIW!]

If hunting is about putting food on the table, in the company of good friends and fellow shooters, enjoying the outdoors, exercising our rights, and participating in a prehistoric ritual ...what makes illegal, sensless and unethical attempts at killing game under any circumstance worth doing...or bragging about?

The good news is simply that there are good men and women hunters who find the evil behavior reprehensible and unacceptable. The burden of responsible hunting and shooting is on us. I make it a personal goal to be very clear with the idiots...they should be taught, counseled and trained...and if they laugh and disagree, they should be shamed and shunned; they shouldn't be quietly dismissed. Nothing takes the fun out of hunting as quickly as having no one who feels comfortable hunting with you!

Len.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Poacher's orange,as it's called is an orange hat that can be removed easily and hidden when one wants to be un-noticed. Still common.

+1. I literally saw a guy do this. Took a shot at a deer that was on my
side of the fence, took off his hat, crossed the fence and started looking
for a bloodtrail. I has seen the way the buck had run and knew it was a
clean miss. I walked up to the guy --a neighbor on one boundary-- told
him he missed, that orange was for all of our safety, and that he was
on the wrong side of the fence.

His response: "But that was a HUGE buck!"

"Mmmkay. Buh-bye." Ok, I'm not even going to get into how that was
also a violation of the occupied building safety zone.......

Things just went downhill in the years after that which I'm not going to
get into and bore y'all. It involved some shooting back and forth and some
explosives.....

 

[Ed Ames]

Quote:

>That was an old dude who probably thought himself quite the roll model for young hunters.<
**************
That would be..."Role"...model, young fella.

You didn't see this guy... roll was definitely the word...

I'm kidding in case anyone had questions. Well, not kidding about barely keeping a straight face as he explained how to cheat during an "ethics" lecture.... that was just kinda sad in a LMAO sort of way.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

Ed. The trouble with kidding on the net is that people can't tell, because they can't see your expressions or hear any inflections in your voice.

That's why we have smileys, use them.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Ed, I was going to invite you to a game of Trivial Pursuit to see how much mind rot has occurred twixt my axis vertebra and superorbital ridge, but I see you're kidding.

BTW, I turn 60 next month.

Back on topic. All of us have some horror stories to tell. There's a lot of wink/nudge that goes on, maybe it's time for some of us to grow up a little.

And, I know some fine people that were real louts in days of yore. There is hope.

And there may be more hope than seems likely. Since one has to control oneself before one can control the shot, growth may be inevitable for us.

 

[Ed Ames]

Invite away... I'll take Senescence for 400 Dinars....

The sad truth is that, for humans, cognative decay begins in the mid thirties. That's a fact as much as anything in biology or psychology can ever be called a fact. "Multiple studies prove..." that it sucks to be human. Why? Because we, unlike your average cockatoo, KNOW that by 40 our brains are rotting out from under us. It isn't an insult, and it isn't something you can deny (no matter how we all might like to)... you've just got to live with it, or not live, as the case may be. Taking an acknowledgement of normal biological processes as an insult is prima facie evidence that cognitive decay is real.

Personally, I try to take it as a compliment. Sort of like, "Look at all the cool stuff I can do despite the fact that my brain is slowly turning to snot in my skull." But that's me... people think I'm weird and I say, "thank you!"

Of course, I can't do everything I once could... and I'd be a fool to try. Part of ethical behavior (lame attempt to get back on topic) is accepting (and, where possible, compensating for) our changing abilities. Passing up a shot (again, trying to make this shooting related) we would've taken with no problems at 24 because we know that at 72 our bodies just aren't capable of the same performance mentally or physically.

Or, when it comes to judging others, realizing that the young kids out doing wild and crazy things that are morally wrong and sure to get them killed are smarter, faster, and physically more capable than we are in our opinionated dotage... even though it is so so very tempting to say they are just annoying idiots. Which is where we started.. with a "kids today" post by 1557.... the sad truth is that kids today are held to a higher moral and behavioral standard than any of us were... they are required to toe a line of strict laws, strict social codes, and strict societal expectations basically from birth with no margin for error. Pre-pubescent kids get charged with sexual harrassment... pre-pubescent kids get charged with crimes in general, hauled away in handcuffs... and kids get suspended or expelled from school for the doodles in their notebooks and the pictures on their tee-shirts. I think of the things I did at 8 or 10, and the penalties a kid today faces for doing the same thing, and the fact that most of them are able to enter adulthood without felony rap sheets, and I have nothing but admiration for their adaptability and intelligence. Well, admiration for them and disgust at the system that is forcing them to be so careful all through their childhood. I don't think I could have done what society now expects them to do.... and it offends me when people start saying "kids today" as though kids today are somehow bad, when as far as I can tell they are living up to a standard NONE of us could've lived up to and sometimes coming out sane. I don't think they are bad, I think they're amazing.

Sorry Larry, I wasn't raised with smileys and I'm too crotchety to take them up now...

 

[CZguy]

Because we, unlike your average cockatoo, KNOW that by 40 our brains are rotting out from under us. It isn't an insult, and it isn't something you can deny (no matter how we all might like to)... you've just got to live with it, or not live, as the case may be.

Uh, are you saying that just to cheer me up?

 

[Art Eatman]

Ed, maybe we ain't been drinking or smoking the same stuff? I'm still working the NYT Sunday Crosswords in ink, so I can't be doing too bad. I'm only 72; my mother was griping about the too-easy level of those, up into her nineties...

Or maybe you've spent too much time among the Jukes and Kallikaks?

My observation is that most folks under forty haven't accumulated enough mileage and experience to justify their opinions--which, of course, does not obviate the possession thereof...



Art

 

[Ed Ames]

I agree that decay isn't the same as instant death. My grandmother was working as a newspaper reporter into her 90s. It would be foolish to say she was as good a reporter at 90 as she could've been at 35. She said (and wrote) some totally clueless things in her day... usually about technology or social trends that didn't exist until she was into middle age. I remember her, in the late 1980s, hearing a Rolling Stones song and saying, "that sort of music is OK I guess, not nearly as bad as they say anyway, but it's just a fad... it won't have the longevity of real music." ... she was more than a little shocked when told that the particular recording she was commenting on had been popular for 25 years and that the band that made it was over 25 years old and still selling out big concert halls... but I'm sure she had forgotten the fact within a day of being told. She had her opinion, based on her miles I guess you'd say, and reality didn't enter into it.

Another high-function older person I knew was a nurse, retired at 65 and then spent years going to Peru and other places as a missionary staff nurse... kept doing that for a long time... until diagnosed with cancer... but she wasn't as good as she would've been at 30. In fact, her knowledge was all totally obsolete by the time I first met her, and she wasn't really learning (or retaining) new knowledge well enough to be safe as a nurse... or a healthy patient, as it worked out. She was handy as a practical nurse but letting her administer current/modern medicines would've been negligent in the extreme. Again, her opinions, based on her experiences, weren't worth a jar of leaches.

That's just reality... and it doesn't mean you can't do a crossword or drive a car or contribute meaningfully to society... but if you think you are just as capable at 72 as you were at 24 you simply don't remember what you were like at 24.

It is funny that you should mention Jukes though...favorite subject of mine.... you of course know about MAOA strength. Interesting how those tie together, isn't it? Jukes and MAOA, MAOA and Jukes, hand in hand. Turns out you gotta break that serotonin down properly if you want a good chance of staying outta jail. Well, it's only speculation that the serotonin is what needs breaking down but we're being informal so why not.

It makes for some interesting ethical dilemmas, doesn't it? Here you have a genetic condition which predisposes a minority (but by no means a small minority) to criminality and recidivism. You can test for it. You know from studies that those with the condition (37% of the population) and one other common environmental factor (12% of the population combine both factors) commit close to 50% of the violent crimes... that they are nine times as likely as anyone else to commit a violent crime, as it works out. You know that by removing either the gene (through genetic therapy, eugenics, or some other means) OR by removing the environmental factor you could reduce violent crime by perhaps 50%. Perhaps by more than that. Heck, you know that just forcing weak MAOA genebearers to wear a special symbol on their clothes (and yeah, that was an obvious reference) would increase the safety of police officers and the general public by warning them not to behave in ways that trigger violent behavior in people with the weak MAOA gene.

The other factor, as you know, is already illegal so you probably won't have much luck eliminating it. You can't simply sterilize 37% of the population because ... well, morality aside we wouldn't be able to sustain our society if 37% of breeding age humans were sterilized. Genetic therapy may cause unforeseen problems and you can bet the minority will protest if we try and force them to receive an experimental genetic therapy. Trying harder to eliminate the other factor means punishing everyone, limiting freedoms, and in general making everyone in society toe a far stricter line than they ever have before.... toe a line kinda like "kids today" are required to toe, now that you think about it... funny how that works. Sad and funny when you realize that by punishing everyone you increase the likelihood that your punishment will become that "other factor" and more than the current 12% will lapse into criminality.

So... Old High Mileage Justifiably Opinionated Dude (and that's meant in a light-hearted way)... what does the context of your life add to your opinion on this issue? I'm not denigrating your experience in any way... just asking how your experience helps us think about how we, the first generation in human history to have the tools and knowledge to realize the nature and scope of the problem we face, will deal with the fact that 37% of our population is vulnerable because of their genetic makeup to childhood abuse in a way that all but guarantees recidivism (something like 90% of weak-MAOA children with a history of abuse end up committing violent crimes as adults) and all but guarantees instability... as in if one child is "triggered" due to abuse, bad luck, or misunderstanding, then she'll almost certainly abuse her children, who will almost certainly abuse theirs... and all of them might abuse someone else's children spreading the problem to other weak-MAOA family lines. It is a very difficult cycle to break except by force, and force can start the cycle if you aren't VERY careful. It isn't something my generation will be able to plead ignorance of...it's a critical issue we will be forced to address... that your generation was lucky enough to dodge.... so what's the answer? An answer? Any answer? It's an ethics question...real ethics, not fair play or public relations... and so kinda appropriate in an ethics thread.


I'm thinking of this for my signature...

"Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use."
-- Homer J. Simpson (a cartoon character... just in case it's too "young" fer you oldies)

....what do you think?