Summer hunting .....a question of ethics??
I do wonder if some of the difference in opinions here is as simple as two things...
1. Experience level. Particularly guys who gave been employed shooters exposed to high animal populations
2. South Island open country hunters. I haven't checked people's profiles to see which part of the country you come from, but for GappedAxe to say he 'watches animals for a while' to make an assessment first, as though he gets this time to watch often, suggests to me he might be a South Island open country hunter.
Hunting Reds but mainly Sika in the North, I mainly see them in thick bush or on tracks & there certainly isn't much time to assess the situation beyond whether it's a deer or not. However, when I did once see a Sika stag on a clay pan in summer and a hind further down on a slip face, my automatic decision was to go for the stag and had no interest in the hind. But it was never because she might have a cute little baby fawn tucked off in the bush somewhere.
I'm pretty sure I cried when Bambi's mum got shot... But I got over it by the time I turned 5