BC,
sorry, that sentence was confusing. Don't know if the Dad had a tag or not. The Dad didn't say, but there where not citations given, to the father or the son. I'm pretty sure the son did not hunt again. (not sure if he gave his tag to the Warden or not.) I never inquired as to whether the father had a tag and/or whether he continue to hunt on his own tag.
Tri.
Well, it's a hot Sunday afternoon. I'm just setting here, bored, wishing there was something going on but I can't even find anything interesting on TV, so what the heck. Beside, I'm was about to PM you and get your recommendation on where my sons and I could find a cheap pig hunt to go in, the next time we're do your way. So....... it's just me, attempting to use you, for my own benefit.
"Isn't he letting his ethics influence his judgement and possibly trump law? "
Sure he is, like I said, every Warden's ethic are different, because on one has the same ethics, even if we are part of a like minded group. Wardens are part of the wildlife law enforcement group, but they are allowed, by the system (law) to make judgement calls, in fact, they are told they have to. That is way there are courts that allow us to appeal a Warden's decision, because, sometimes they make the incorrect ethics and judgement decision and a court can and sometime will reverse it. Then it's a Judge or a jury who is making a "ethics influence his judgement". If that make sense.
Our laws are written as if every thing is black and white but it rarely is.
A police officer, does the same thing, many times. That's why you get a warning on occasion. Judge's are, in many cases, allowed to free people who are guilty, by their own admission, of breaking laws. We allow these "enforcement" folks to make decisions about how to proceed all the time. That's why we hope to hire only wise Wardens and law enforcement officers, and why we hope to remove unwise officers, if and when necessary.
I think it would be simpler for law enforcement people, if we had "3 strikes and you out" for "all laws", bobcat might like that better too, but it's not practical nor is it wise because "absolutes" are not a condition of human behavior and we would have anarchy if we attempted to live like that. Despots try it and it can only survive so long before the population revolt against them.
"Why should the investigating officer's ethics be any more significant in this land than yours or mine?"
Because we hire them to make those judgements, and we give them the authority and more importantly the responsibility to make "in the field judgements" assuming their ethics are consistent with ours, as a culture/civilization. Consistent but not always perfectly the same. But consistent enough to allow our system to function with a reasonable degree of predictability and reliability. When officers get too far away from our expectation, as a society, we try to remove them from their authority.
Specifically, it's their job, not ours, (your or mine) and we (as a civilization) gave the officer that job to do. We all have different jobs, we don't assume the ethic of a Doctor or a dam Engineer, just because we want to take the appendix out of our neighbor or drop a load of concrete into a river that run across our property. (Stupid comparisons, but you get the idea.) Some are given authority for one thing, others for another.
"I also point to wapitiwilly's post stating he will do the deed but also report himself to the authorities. He readily accepts both his responsibility as a conservationist and hunter as well as a citizen under the law."
I respectfully disagree, I believe the cow was killed unintentionally. (maybe carelessly but how can anyone determine that?) So, challenging the law, by kill the bull, to justify your personal ethics don't work for me. If you shoot the bull after you kill the cow, for me it's not an ethical decision what so ever. It's either legal to kill the bull or it's not, according to the kind of tag you have. If it's and "Any Bull" tag, technically you could kill it, according my understanding of the law, because you haven't killed a bull. If it's an "Any Elk" you can't kill the bull, because you already killed an elk, it a cow.
How can we allow personal ethics to trump the law? If we do down that rabbit hole, there are a lot of young women in this country who's genitals are going to get altered by their religious leaders and their so called ethical fathers, ethical by how's standards of ethics?
Now what I don't know is what Utah's law states about the specific scenario. If the law say's if you kill "any elk", when you have and Any Elk tag, you must retire your elk tag. If it say's that, then, if the son had an "Any Bull" tag and he shoot the cow, he's legally done hunting, even if he can't tag the cow with an "Any Bull" tag. If the law doesn't specifically address the scenario then a Judge or Jury will decide and my guess is the hunter will walk, and the Fish and Game will petition the Legislature for a new regulation, that more clearly states what the hunter will need to do, if it happens again, to someone else.
We always want "cut and dried" rules and then we b!tch like hell when we are legislatured into oblivion. I prefer some flexibility on the part of the Wardens and the system myself, but the minute we do, some jackwagon will decide he can start killing cows on a "Any Bull" tag and claiming it was an accident. So we are forced to have our agencies walk a tight rope and still keep the system viable.
In our culture and civilization, which has, up until now, worked on basic human trust and integrity, it has to work this way, or we move to something none of us would be very happy with. But......... there will always be a small degree of injustice that comes out of our best efforts to make it work. We just hope we are able to hold it to a minimal level, for all our sakes.
"I also wonder if all these internet hunters would still call him a "poacher" if the bull just tipped over thirty seconds after the cow. Where does the tag go now?"
I believe he has to call the Warden and let the State give him direction, because he's going to be in a "damned to you do, and damned if you don't" situation and he need's to step carefully when the situation is dicy and this scenario is dicy, by your design.
Is he a poacher? That's kind of a loaded question. It's a term like "marriage" isn't it? Don't think I'll try to explain my opinion of either, or we'll be long into the night!!!
Now Tri........ about that pig hunt.....
DC
