[Crystal] Are you ready?
[beep]
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What are ethics? There's a
lot of different ways to put it but
I like to think of it as choosing between
right and wrong when nobody else is looking.
You always want to follow the law,
but what about the things that aren't written into law?
[Crystal] Ethics. It's a big one.
[Matt] Yes.
[Crystal] What does ethics mean to you?
[Matt] Well, I see two categories,
and you referenced them.
One is, the ethics of following the laws
as they're written by Colorado Parks and Wildlife,
but then there's this other level of, within the law,
are there certain behaviors or things
that I as a person draw lines on.
I'm gonna go that far but I'm not gonna go this far.
My ethics that relate to clean
kill of the animal, retrieval, a lot of
different things. And hunting is one of
those weird places where those two
things are mixed together and it's
sometimes difficult to figure out which
one do we follow. And sometimes your
personal ethic and the legal
requirements, the legal ethic, might
conflict. Like, let me give you an example.
So, we're gonna be hunting in an area
where there's a lot of private property.
We're gonna be hunting on some private
property, we have permission, but it's
next to places where we don't have
permission. So, imagine we're out there,
We watch a deer on the land we have
permission to shoot, or to hunt on.
You make a shot, the animal... you make a good shot.
The animal has enough left in it to
run to the fence, jump over the fence,
travel a little bit under the next
person's property, and then die.
Now, we don't have permission on that property,
so legally we're not allowed to go and
retrieve it. But, there's our animal
that's laying-- we can see it right out
there and dead, and we know we need to
field dress it, we need to tag it.
What do you do?
[Crystal] I would definitely call the landowner or drive over to
their house, see if I can find them,
get permission to go onto that land.
Otherwise it's trespassing.
[Matt] Yes. Okay.
I'm gonna make this a little harder.
What if you don't have cell service?
Drive over! Or walk.
Okay, sure. Gonna make this
a little bit higher. A lot of the
properties that we're hunting on our
agricultural leases. There's no house on
the property. There's no house to go to.
I have the district wildlife manager's number
so I give them a call and we...
[Matt] We don't have cell service.
[Crystal] Oh, shoot. No cell service.
Ahhhh, uh oh.
[Matt] Do you drive to cell service         
with the animal laying there?
[Crystal] Drive to cell service and call the  
district wildlife manager
and see if they can get ahold of the landowner.
[Matt] Time's ticking.
You know, It's getting warm, that animal's out there.
So, what if we have to drive 10 miles?
We could probably do that.   
 [Crystal] Yeah!
[Matt] What if it's 30 miles?
 It's an hour and a half round trip.
[Crystal] Yep... absolutely.
[Matt] Okay, but see it's feeling just a
 little bit more icky, right?
Let's take it to this level.
What if the animal just jumps over the fence?
We're talking five feet, and dies right there.
Now it's the same thing that we
just went through, but it's only
five feet away as opposed to  
 several hundred yards away.
[Crystal] Uh huh...
[Matt] Feel how it changes?
[Crystal] You still want to call the district wildlife manager.
[Matt] This is the kind of
a scenario that, when you talk about
hunting ethics, every hunter needs to be
prepared for.
Like, what if you can like reach...
like your one foot is still on the land...
and then you just like reach over... is that tresspassing?
[Matt] It is.
Like, both feet are on the land
you're allowed on... reach over...
[Matt] It is. You are still
doing an activity on somebody else's property.
So. This is something that-- it's
good to run through your mind,
as a hunter, what are you gonna do?
And as you can see, it's a position where legally...
the line of the law is still the
same, but personally, it really starts to change.
So, I have a lot of respect for
people like you that want to start hunting,
because you're putting yourself
in scenarios like this where the law and
your personal ethic are gonna have to
find a balance. So for every new hunter
including you, before we go out, let's
make sure we have the district wildlife
manager's phone number, let's see if we
can do some research on the properties
around it so we know who the individuals
are the own it, that when we go into cell
service if we need to we can try to call
them, everything we can to try to give us
more information to guide that decision.
[Crystal] Yeah.
Don't tresspass.
[Matt] Let's not do that. Okay.
Define your ethics before you set out on
your hunt, and it's a good idea to find
hunting partners who share similar ethic
boundaries with you. I would love to see
you share some ethical choice scenarios
in the comments, so people can practice
what they think they would do.
Hey everyone, thanks for following along on
my big game hunting journey. Hunting
license dollars are a super important
source of funding for the wildlife
conservation work that Colorado Parks
and Wildlife does, for all species in
Colorado, not just the game species you
can hunt. So we want to make it as easy
as possible for you to buy a hunting
license. If you've ever thought about going hunting, or just considered the possibility,
be sure to hit up our website or give
us a call for more information.
We'll link all the information in the
youtube description. If you like this
video series and you want to see more
videos that we make at Colorado Parks
and Wildlife, be sure to subscribe on the
youtube link below.
Thanks for watching!
