Thread: Illegal hunting..does it bother you?

It's interesting that until some time in the last month or two the DOC public policy around thermal contradicted itself. Previously the conditions on the permit itself stated no thermal could ever be used for hunting at any time while the website official unabridged conditions that were linked to when you completed the permit application said thermal could not be used during non-hunting night hours. It looks like either they've updated the website or I can't find the page I found previously. I checked because of all the miscommunication on the subject and found that the permit rules varied from the official rules. Unfortunately I didn't bookmark the page so it's gone unless I somehow find an old link somewhere. Given that until now even DOC was contradicting itself I'm not surprised that no one quite knows the rules. In this case until recently, it was completely possible to go to the DOC website, read the official rules, and get two completely different answers.

In terms of ethics, I'd say if you do your due diligence to follow rules as they are written, are conscientious in your behavior, and respect animals (IE ensure a clean quick death), you're fine. I don't really care past that. Hunt with a rocket launcher or pointy stick, if the animal dies quickly then it died better than most wild animals and lived better than some captive animals, so really that's a plus all round. Past that do whatever you want, especially if it doesn't inconvenience others excessively (I'm sure that some trampers will say that hearing a gunshot is unacceptable, so I'm willing to make allowance for small inconveniences... we can't be expected to get along all the time unless we're heavily drugged à la Brave New World).

I'd also say that people deliberately operating far outside the rules (IE shooting from a vehicle with a spotlight, from a public road, onto private land they don't have legal access to, without a firearms permit) aren't hunters... and we'd do well to correct any description of them as hunters to criminals and poachers, otherwise the public will see us as the same.