Legally harvested game and tracking collars

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Wood Smoke II

New member
First, let me clear the air and say that this is not at all about moral obligation or anti-hunting thinking. It’s simply a pondering of thought of a hypothetical situation and it’d be interesting to hear others’ views on this. So, here’s something for the Member Club House to consider. I recently saw a very well done documentary on the wolves of Yellowstone. The history, the rise & fall of different matriarchal wolf packs, and the wolf conservation and wildlife study/research efforts over many years. This of course involved collar tagging as a research tool. The documentary essentially concluded with the end of life story about a dominant matriarch who had left the boundaries of the park and was legally hunted and harvested. One thing to note in particular was that one of the Park researchers who had studied the Park’s wolves for years (decades?) was clear on his view that the wolf was legally harvested and that he had no disregard for the legal hunter or the state’s regulations that allow regulated wolf hunting.

Let me fast forward this to the introspective question. Would you legally harvest a collared game animal of any species if the opportunity presented itself? No prejudice or moral obligation implications here at all, and I think we fully respect the opinion and decision of anyone harvesting an animal legally. Just curious as to what y’all think and especially from folks that have a long history of big game hunting under your belt.

I live in the southeast and have never had the opportunity to go west for big game, but it was always a bucket list wish. I have a friend in Montana now on a trophy elk hunt and I’ve always enjoyed hearing him talk about trips in prior years. It’s doubtful that I’ll ever make a big game trip out west, but it’d be a crazy thing to finally spot, stalk, track , etc a trophy bull elk, pronghorn, muley, bear, or whatever and then realize it’s wearing a collar. Do taxidermist charge extra for a head mount with collar pose?
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i would feel the same thing as i do shooting a non-tracking collared animal... a gentle push of recoil against my shoulder. I'd simply have a collar to return to the proper folks managing it - so they can get the last of the data off it. Although i would request that if possible i can have a non-working collar to go with my kill as it would tell a good fireside or hunting camp story.

that tracker can always be transferred onto another animal, just like it would have if the animal had died of natural causes like predators, roadkill, illness, old age, etc... and then been recovered.
 
I feel we have a moral obligation to shoot such animals, assuming we would have shot that animal without a collar. The point of the data is determine how all activities are impacting wildlife. As such if you pass on animal simply because it has a collar then the data become skewed. Same as a person who might only look for a collar. I act as if it is not there and as a result it does not matter.

Lastly when you take a collared animal the researcher will often give you data and history on that animal.
 
I have encountered legal animals with collars but have always chosen one without.
A couple friends have taken collared animals and turned the collar over to the game dept.
On the other side people have been busted for collared illegal kills.
 
Originally Posted By: Plant.One. ....that tracker can always be transferred onto another animal, just like it would have if the animal had died of natural causes like predators, roadkill, illness, old age, etc... and then been recovered.
Good point.
 
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Originally Posted By: elks ..... The point of the data is determine how all activities are impacting wildlife. As such if you pass on animal simply because it has a collar then the data become skewed. Same as a person who might only look for a collar. I act as if it is not there and as a result it does not matter.
Also a good opinion as it helps emphasizes importance of objectivity and non-bias of the research. I think there would be an unwanted bias of results if the hunting public had collective, unfounded, one sided views of conservation and wildlife management. Best example of this is long ago here in the southeast folks tended to believe that does (whitetails) should not be taken. Now we know different. Deer populations are thriving & it’s “shoot the does”!

Originally Posted By: tripod3 I have encountered legal animals with collars but have always chosen one without.
A couple friends have taken collared animals and turned the collar over to the game dept..
Thanks for the comment. This is real, western state (WA?) hunt experience and interesting for sure. Our season limit on deer here in GA is twelve deer ( 2/12 antlered )! That’s a lot of shooting if you think you can “tag out”. I’m pretty sure the state doesn’t collar deer for research as management data is certainly well established.
 
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Originally Posted By: Wood Smoke II Our season limit on deer here in GA is twelve deer ( 2/12 antlered )!

it always blows my mind when i hear the *limits* on deer in some states.
 
Originally Posted By: SlickerThanSnotOriginally Posted By: Wood Smoke II Our season limit on deer here in GA is twelve deer ( 2/12 antlered )!

it always blows my mind when i hear the *limits* on deer in some states.

here in Michigan doe tags are issued based on local population counts of the herd.

locally where i hunt the current count is limited to 10 antlerless permits per hunter. which means based on the usual # of hunters on our land we could harvest up to 80 does.

however... the total # of private land antlerless tags available for my DMU is currently around 997,500, the DMU 4 miles west of us is an additional 998,150. The DMU to our south 3 miles has 997,880. the DMU on the SE corner of ours has 998,430 available. thats basically 4 MILLION private land doe tags for a 4 county area.

in contrast, the county immediately to our north only has 4300 private land tags available. The DMU that shares their western border ( NW corner of us ) only got 2500.




in years past, i have seen it as high as 5 PER day per hunter - or like 75 total for firearm deer season. that was pre CWD and EHD days though.




we're in a heavy commercial agriculture area, so there's a LOT of food to be had, and still plenty of cover due to the river systems in the area. So its able to support a VERY high deer population and our local herd is part of one of the largest in the state because of that.

 
Originally Posted By: SlickerThanSnot it always blows my mind when i hear the *limits* on deer in some states.
I don’t know anyone who really tries to tag out but I do know it’s quite possible if you hunt most weekends.

Originally Posted By: Plant.One ...... here in Michigan doe tags are issued based on local population counts of the herd.


GA is divided into northern & southern zones. The majority of all counties in the southern zone have doe days every day of the 2019-2020 firearms season Oct 19 - Jan 12. Doe or buck tags are not issued or limited, but GA does have a mobile app, web based harvest report system with required reporting. Never heard of a collared deer here either.
 
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Originally Posted By: crapshootBanded duck, collard game....same, same. BONUS!

Agreed. Except the only difference is that mr. duck hunter didn’t know he’d shot a banded duck until after he picked it up. I’ve done it once many, many years ago, & that little band is a pretty cool bonus.
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