The Hog Blog has started a discussion of hunting ethics, which was started from a posting on The Thinking Hunter’s blog.
They’re both excellent posts on the topic.
I don’t have much to add to the discussion, being the new hunter that I am. But I can say in my short time I’ve already had some ethical debates. Let me quote from The Hog Blog:
Reading all the way through your post, it strikes me that what you’re describing is a situational ethic (you called it conditional… which is the same, I guess). It’s defined by where you’re hunting, what you’re hunting, and why you’re hunting it. That means that what is “right” in one case may be “wrong” in the other… even though it’s really the same thing. And that’s where I think the idea of trying to affix a single definition of ethics falls to pieces. You can’t pigeonhole it.
At its core, a hunting ethic is a purely individual thing, no different than any other set of ethics, really. At best, it’s framed by some common ideals, but when it comes down to it, it’s all about the hunter’s personal values and motivations. And those motivations and values are subject to constant change and evolution.
I would have to agree here. As a case in point, let’s take my past deer lease. It was me and 2 other guys, C and M. Both of those guys are long-time hunters — they grew up with it, and I did not. For M, he’s really out for a trophy; sure he enjoyed the meat, but his criteria for a deer worth shooting was narrow. Then there’s me, and I was just out for my first deer, so anything legal was just fine by me. For M, he didn’t think it would be right to shoot a deer over a feeder. For me, I didn’t see a problem with it. To me, what’s the real difference? If you were some Indian tracking deer a couple hundred years ago, you’d still be looking to find them at the watering hole, at their food sources, or on trails leading to or from those places. So what does it matter if it’s a mechanical corn feeder or a grove of oak trees dropping acorns? It’s still shooting them at their food source. Is there a difference? Maybe… what if the land had been in your family for decades and it was your great-grandfather that planted all of those oak trees to help attract deer to the area (i.e. great-grandpa was making a long-term investment in his property)? Is there a difference? Perhaps, but I hope you can see that in the end, it’s all about putting food in the area to attract and keep what you want in the area.
This isn’t to say either of us have bad ethics, just different. We all do have a baseline of understanding a need for sustaining the area. We don’t want to shoot everything there, we don’t want to clean it out so there’s no population in the future… if you want to continue to hunt, you need to ensure there’s something to continue to hunt! But there are some that prefer to shoot them all and clear it out. Is that a bad thing? Again, it all depends how you frame it and the context. If the deer population were starving or diseased, clearing them all out might be the right thing to do. If the hunters were starving and couldn’t obtain food any other way, that’s different. If they just wanted to blow up all the Bambi’s they could, that’s different too. So again, it all comes back to what the other bloggers were saying: where, what, and why. Even then, we’re likely to disagree.
The discussion is worthwhile. I doubt we’ll come to a consensus, but to ensure we can examine ourselves and know why we do what we do and if we feel it’s right and good, that’s important to do.
Stuff From Hsoi 
As a life long hunter, (50yrs on the planet), I am certain there are as many answers on “Hunting Ethics” as there are hunters themselves. In my opinion, a swift clean kill is necessary, as is the utilization of all meat obtained from hunting. Whether the hunter chooses to keep the meat for themselves as I do,(my family & I enjoy venison), or to donate to outstanding organizations such as Hunters Feeding the Hungry is certainly a personal choice. As far as I am concerned, we “Hunters” should argue less about what constitutes “ethical”, and focus our energies on keeping the “Anti’s” at bay!!!
It’s funny you mention the swift, clean, kill. My children were discussing amongst themselves the other day about this very thing. That the way hunters work is really a lot more humane than the way nature itself works! Just watch documentaries on Discovery or Animal Planet and watch how other animals kill each other… suffocation, many bites, it can take a long time for the prey to die, and many times the predator starts eating the prey before the prey is even dead! The way we do it strives to be about as humane as one can possibly be: swift, clean.
I think the best way to keep an “anti” at bay is one at a time. To work to educate them. It’s hard to do it in grand sweeping gestures. I’ve found that when issues are very polarizing, being able to discuss one-on-one or at most in small group really helps. That way you can work to address their specific concerns, questions, or whatever they may have. It may not happen over night, but I have found such things tend to work much better. So it’s not so much being “anti”… and who knows, they may still be against it for themselves personally. But I have found it helps to bridge the gap, bring better understanding.
And if we’re talking about hunting I’ve found a great thing that really helps: food. 🙂 I’m happy to share the meat I harvest with neighbors and friends. They always come back telling me how great it tasted, and I make no bones about where the meat came from. That seems to open them up just a bit more. 🙂