Thread: Summer hunting .....a question of ethics??

Originally Posted by Hunt4life

R93 and Sneeze, you may be right that with age/experience our shoot anything attitudes may change. But I'm guessing you have probably had easy access to large populations of deer in times gone by & even perhaps were employed shooters.
I, however, am a self taught hunter, who never had anyone 'in the know' to take me or even tell me honestly where reasonable numbers of deer were. In places we tried as teenagers and early twenty-something's, there were either next to no deer, or we had encounters with bastard helicopter recovery shooters, ruining our investment, venison opportunity and adventure in one foul swoop. So, now that I know of some spots which produce, I make time, find the funds, plan and prepare and drive for hours to give myself an opportunity to put a deer in the freezer for my family to enjoy. And given that I've shot only six deer in 24 years of bloody hard work hunting, I'll shoot dead whatever deer I see.
Having said that, don't make the mistake of judging me and categorising me as heartless or not one of the good guys. I have nothing but respect for our bush & animals and have broken my own heart a few times by not placing my shots in various animals (bunnies & hares mainly) well, causing pain and suffering. We do live and learn. One of the things I hope to maintain as I 'gain wisdom', is not to become self-righteous about what 'hunting' really is

Seriously Mate ? You start off defending your actions with the threat of " over population" and now your struggling to find 6 deer in 24 years?
You claim to be heart broken over some poor shot placement on rabbits while wilfully shooting lactating hinds?
And Im living in a glass house?
Still I guess anyone that has any opinion at all lives in a house with at least a little glass in it.
Im not talking about mistakes, god knows we all make enough of them,this is about conscious decisions and being aware of the outcome, so if having an opinion against intentional acts resulting in animals starving to death is getting on my high horse then so be it. I don't get up on one very often, maybe I'll take a liking to the view.
So is this just a matter of degrees maybe?, would you let a neighbour starve a dog to death? or a pet goat? is it simply a case of out of sight out of mind? Would you still shoot that hind with the fawn at foot if the fawn spent the next month slowly fading away on your back lawn while your family looked on?
Im not all up in arms here ,just my opinion FWIW and maybe some food for thought .