Morality vs. Fish & Game

[Robert]

This can sometimes be a gray area. Doing the right thing is not always the appropriate legal thing. People make mistakes. Sometimes animals do also. Has anyone ever had any hard decisions to make?

[LMM]

Is it truly an issue of "Doing the right thing is not always the appropriate legal thing."

OR

Is it truly an issue of "Doing the SYMPATHETIC thing is not always the appropriate legal thing."?

Life faces us with hard decisions to make all the time.  When is making the right and legal decision the wrong decision?

[mountainview]

Not exactly sure what you meant but my guideline/rule is, when in doubt even a little bit, pass on it and don't take the shot.  

Doing the right thing if it is legal or no, hmmmm ...., better off to call/report it  the DNR warden rather than taking things into your own hands even when you believe it to be the right thing to do.

[rickyp]

in MD you can not shoot a deer that is taking refuge in water.

Last year we where hunting along the banks of a local river when a very large buck jumps in the river to get way from us, now mind you the river was partly frozen over and the deer fell trough the ice and was stuck in the ice struggling to get back up but couldn't we let this go on for about half an hour until the deer was physically un able to fight any more and was just laying in the water.

now the question came up do we shoot it and kill it cleanly and then retrieve it or do we let it lay there and drown to death and be a total loss?

we decided to shoot it and go out and retrieve it with a john boat.
 we did break the law but what we did was ethical. It comes down to a judgment call do what you believe is right

[goose7856]

i to belive it is what you think is right......laws really IMHO are really guidleines, and sometimes those guidelines can be brkoen in Very certain instances, and you will not be penalized.....that story is an example of a good situation where the laws SHOULD be broken....

Another story happened to me three years ago during the middle of the summer.........I was 13 and went to a baseball game.....the school we were playing at backed fup to some woods.....and when I got there, a huge crowd had gathered watching something down the small hill and towards a river/ditch area near the woods........well it so happened that a doe was stuck in some sort "quick sand" mud, and could not get out.......It was one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life......just to watch it struggle....i wanted to help it, but what could I have really done?? And plus, my p'rants would let me go down to help it just as a case of safety....well it took about 10 min, and the deer finally got its head stuck in the muddy water, and drowned to death......i hated the site of it, and i wish there was something I could have done.....if I had a gun I would have shot it, or if i was allowed, would have gone to help the poor animal......

I thought i would just pass that along, the story above kinda reminded me of the incident...... :cry: