The term ethics refers to the study of how to determine the right or moral way to act when faced with everyday human predicaments. Hunting ethics are a set of moral standards that help us, as hunters, to make the right or moral choice when we find ourselves in situations that arise from going into the woods with a weapon to take an animal’s life. Not everyone agrees on what doing the right thing means exactly, but for most situations adhering to the following set of general ethical hunting guidelines helps ensure that you are acting responsibly.

Follow Hunting Laws

Hunting ethically begins with following the hunting rules and regulations for your area. You cannot hunt ethically while also breaking hunting laws. It is your responsibility to educate yourself on the laws that govern the specific area where you are hunting. Claiming ignorance of a hunting law is not a valid excuse for breaking it. Be sure to buy the proper licenses and tags for the season and animal which you are hunting. Know when the season begins and ends, along with the time of day that you can start and stop hunting. Do not harvest more animals than you are legally allowed, and only use the proper hunting methods and legal equipment when in the field.

Respect Your Prey

Another part of being an ethical and responsible hunter involves respecting the animal you are pursuing. As a hunter, you have made the decision to end an animal’s life, and you owe it to the animal to make its expiration as quick, painless and certain as possible. This means using equipment that is adequate to harvest the animal successfully. Educate yourself about the animal’s biology and determine the best spot to shoot the animal that will yield the greatest chance for a quick expiration. 

You should also make every effort to find and recover the animal that you have shot. Shooting a game animal without the intent of recovery is not hunting – it is simply killing. Killing a game animal for the sake of killing, or killing an animal simply to collect a trophy is never considered to be an ethical hunting practice. Only harvest as many animals as you can use without wasting any of the meat or other parts. Take care to properly handle the animal after recovery so that the usable and edible parts are not ruined. After recovery, either process the animal yourself or take the animal to a processor as quickly as you can to minimize the chance that the meat could spoil and be lost.

Know Your Weapon

When you make the decision to carry a deadly weapon, you are assuming the responsibility to know how to handle the weapon safely, how to properly maintain and care for it, how to properly cock, load and fire it, and how to shoot it with a high level of skill and accuracy. There is no excuse for ignorance of the proper use of your weapon. Becoming highly skilled and proficient includes committing yourself prior to the season to practicing with it and developing a safe handling routine.

Most weapons have limits when it comes to accuracy and performance, and you are also responsible for knowing those limits prior to using the weapon in a hunting scenario. This is especially critical in archery hunting, as arrows can lose speed and energy quickly downfield and can be blown off target in windy conditions. Taking long-range shots at an animal to determine how far away you can shoot but still harvest it is unethical because you may wound the animal without the possibility for recovery and cause the animal undue suffering. It is your duty as an archery hunter to get as close to the animal as possible before taking a shot, because the odds that you will make an accurate and effective kill shot greatly increase the closer you are to the animal. If you don’t have a reasonable amount of confidence that you can accurately hit and recover the animal, you should not take the shot at all.

Respect the Land, Landowners and Other Hunters

Whether you are hunting on private or public land, you are a guest of the landowner and you should conduct yourself accordingly. When hunting on private land, you should obtain the proper permission from the landowner and follow any rules relating to the use of that specific property. When hunting on public land, respect the space of other hunters and folks who may be utilizing the area for non-hunting recreational activities. Be courteous to people that you encounter in the woods and avoid littering or permanently altering a space without permission. Always leave the area you are hunting as close to the same condition as when you first discovered it. Finally, if a private landowner has granted you permission to hunt, be sure to say thanks for being given the opportunity.

Follow the Principle of Fair Chase

The Boone and Crockett Club defines fair chase as “the ethical, sportsmanlike and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big-game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.” In other words, it is unethical to use certain tactics or to hunt in certain spaces that give the hunter an unfair advantage by lowering, beyond what is reasonable, the chance for the animal to escape. This includes shooting an animal that is caught in a trap, deep snow, water or ice, shooting an animal from a vehicle or boat, or using a vehicle or boat to herd or drive animals to a particular location, using a spotlight to blind an animal and shoot it at night, or shooting an animal that has been leashed, caged or drugged to prevent the animal from escaping.

Pass It On

The final responsibility, and perhaps the greatest one, is to pass along an ethical hunting culture to younger hunters and novices to the sport. The most powerful way of doing this is to lead by example. Young people and those less experienced pay close attention to how the hunters around them conduct themselves, and they mimic the actions and ethical choices of those experienced, mature hunters. If you are hunting with a group, it is important that you hold your fellow hunters accountable to ethical hunting practices, because, as the old saying goes: “One bad apple spoils the bunch.” Tolerating unacceptable behavior from those in your hunting party may result in the entire group being banned from hunting in an area in the future because of the careless or selfish acts of a few unethical members. When considering the sometimes negative and critical spotlight that is publicly shined upon hunters by the news media and anti-hunting groups, it is also important to conduct yourself in an ethical manner that helps to guarantee the rights of hunters will remain intact in the future.

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