I think we can all agree that we, as hunters, have an ethical duty to make every reasonable effort to recover game we have shot at and wounded, but what about a legal duty? I don't wish to get into the weeds about what constitutes reasonable or wounded but a thread will go where it will...
For argument's sake let's say wounded is defined as, in the judgement of the shooter, a "probably mortal" wound, and reasonable is defined as having exhausted all readily available means to pursue and recover said wounded game short of putting one's life in jeopardy.
After reading through the thread on the Homer bio's use of a contracted airplane I checked the regs for references and outside of brown bear hunters being required to "punch" their tags and make a report on wounded but unrecovered animals, there isn't any.
Given the emphasis the state puts on this issue I am surprised there is no specific language in the regs on this.
So, to the forum: Should the Alaska Hunting Regs 1) Contain language on the duty of hunters to recover wounded game? and 2) define the legal limits of means and methods for recovering?
I feel this should be included in the regs and located in the general information pages in the beginning and not scattered throughout the book
For argument's sake let's say wounded is defined as, in the judgement of the shooter, a "probably mortal" wound, and reasonable is defined as having exhausted all readily available means to pursue and recover said wounded game short of putting one's life in jeopardy.
After reading through the thread on the Homer bio's use of a contracted airplane I checked the regs for references and outside of brown bear hunters being required to "punch" their tags and make a report on wounded but unrecovered animals, there isn't any.
Given the emphasis the state puts on this issue I am surprised there is no specific language in the regs on this.
So, to the forum: Should the Alaska Hunting Regs 1) Contain language on the duty of hunters to recover wounded game? and 2) define the legal limits of means and methods for recovering?
I feel this should be included in the regs and located in the general information pages in the beginning and not scattered throughout the book
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