Bow and arrow is seldom a clean immediate kill. Too many animals are stuck outside the vital area because the deer turned or the hunter failed or shot too far. It's not ethical to kill deer this way.
Trapping, use of non-kill traps is cruel they are unethical.
Handgun hunting, small low power guns, with poor accuracy, again unethical.
All said tongue in cheek but you see the point, arguments for ethics can made.
If we can not post photos of game with guns if we can not talk or take game in any LEGAL fashion, for fear of offending the so called silent majority,then our goose is cooked. That line of thinking shows we believe there are aspects of our sport that we believe are wrong. An environment is being created by some in our community for us to sneak around like kids doing something wrong. It also smells of elitism, "my ethics are better, my ways are better". The "anti" crowd does not suffer such differences of opinion. They are unified, we (hunters) are divided. It is a weakness and it helps those who want to end sport hunting.
Serious food for thought:
Pheasant stocking. Here in NH our wildlife department stocks pheasants each fall. The pen raised birds have almost no chance for survival. In spite of decades of stocking there is no native population. It's a very cruel put and take hunting in that regard. Pheasant stocking in NH and many other states is not done for biological reasons. It is simply to provide live targets for hunters. How do our game managers rationalize this? Is this really ethical? It also concentrates hunters into small areas thus resulting in more shooting incidents which make the news and scare the non hunting public.
