Thread: Illegal hunting..does it bother you?

To me there are degrees of wrong in most situations. Illegal hunting being one of them.
As an example, a friend of mine used to hunt a large block of land in the North Island. It was privately owned (by a Maori trust) and neither he, or the many others who hunted it, ever got permission to do so. It bordered a large DoC block and people used to come and go off it as they pleased. It was not that the land owners didn't know (as some did) but more that they didn't care. The land was not being used for anything in particular and they were doing no harm to it apart from keeping the deer and pig numbers in check. Legally I guess you could say they were poaching as they did not have expressed permission to hunt there and could therefore be prosecuted but practically they were not upsetting anybody (ie the land owner) by being there hunting. Was that such a heinous crime? I don't think you can compare this to something like sneaking onto a game farm at night and shooting the owners prize stag. Someone who does this knows that the owner doesn't want them there and knows they shouldn't be there.
Foot note. The land I mentioned is now leased by a helicopter operator who (naturally) doesn't want people on it other than his paying clients. My mate has now stopped hunting there.