So my wife has a Wasatch deer tag. We hunted Saturday morning & then she went to the trailer to rest. I have no tag, no orange but want to go walk around the trees. Maybe there will be a wounded deer as I heard a lot of shots in the area & didn't see many deer come out. So I grab her rifle just in case. Walla - a wounded buck, maybe the hunter is near so I'll kill it & of course clean it. Might as well get it to the road for them. No hunter shows up but my wife has a tag so the management objective is even. DNR sees me with no orange, no license & covered in blood. Someone turned me in. I explain to DNR I was helping out a fellow hunter, txt my wife a story for when she gets questioned. Even though I have no orange, no license - my original intent was pure, I don't want deer to suffer in agony.
Did I hurt the population? (Yep, I wasn't licensed & killed a deer I had no business killing)
Did I hurt conservation? (yep, I poached)
One license & one dead elk doesn't even the objective. One license killed by THE TAG HOLDER evens the objective.
I get you are playing devils advocate & I get you strongly have your opinions. The rest of us have opinions as well.
In your opinion do you tell them congrats, bull is dead & tagged & will look great on the wall? Or do you let LE & the courts figure out what went down? The accused admitted to lying, the accused admitted to carrying a rifle on a hunt he had no tag for. The accused admitted to not wearing required orange. The accused admitted to doing what his ethics dictated. (all semantics I guess?)
Why have LE if you don't want them to take evidence & sort it out - our society cannot police themselves in my opinion.
Oh well - I'll let you have the last word & enjoy your future arguments.