- You shoot it, you eat it and make reasonable use of the whole animal. Reasonable is up for debate. You breast out a dove and that's proper. A pheasant you breast out and make use of the legs and thighs as well. I make soup from the carcasses.. and that goes for Turkey, too. I admit I don't eat the testicles, heart and liver of deer, and don't make leather from the hide. Others do. "reasonable use" is a grey area.
- A landowner has an ethical duty to allow a small party of hunters to follow their blood trail, on foot, on his property without first getting permission. The hunters must only be in pursuit of their wounded animal and not do any damages other than tracks in the mud or snow. If they want to bring vehicles or horses, they must ask the landowner. That's how it used to be, legally in my state. Then Scott Walker had the rules changed. Now if your blood trail goes into another property, you have to go ask permission, or legally you can just forget it ever happened. That's wrong.
- Pest control isn't hunting. When the Department of Natural Resources says "cull this animal on sight" then follow that request. Hogs in Wisconsin? Shoot on sight. Call the DNR and report it. At one point in the neighboring county where I hunt, white tail deer were to be shot on sight during deer season. Carcasses were to be hauled to the DNR station for testing. I think I got about 17 that season. Agricultural tags? I've shot deer for the land owner at his request. As it's a CWD hotspot, what he does with them is not my concern. The neighbor's deer just tested positive for CWD. We won't eat it or even feed the meat to the dogs. It will be disposed of properly.
Sometimes a land owner can follow the 3 S's... shoot, shovel and shut up about it. Illegal but sometimes ethical. Sometimes not.
City pests- if I trap an animal, it will not be released into the wild. The overpopulated pest animals in the city often carry disease and that should not be spread into the wild. Cronic Wasting Disease has run wild among deer where I live. Don't transport wild animals or fish unless you're working under the direction of the DNR. Like rabbits in Australia... don't do that.
Poaching for Food... my dad was a boy in the time of WWII, his dad was a veteran of WWI and too old to serve. They poached deer for needy hungry families who's men were off at war. The game warden told them it was okay to take a couple extra and he'd look the other way. Illegal but ethical. I bet there are other cases of this.
Shooting or Trapping for fur... so long as the activity is for the good of the species, keeping the species healthy and numbers in check as determined by wildlife biologists, I am okay with that and it's legal.
Trapping animals and relocating them to be shot so tourists can pay you to shoot at them on paid "guided hunts" or from helicopters, legal but unethical. That's my opinion.
Shooting stocked birds that have just been placed in the field 20 minutes earlier? That's like shooting fish in a barrel, but I have done it and felt bad about it. I saw the chicken wagon and did not go home. If the birds have been afield for who knows how long? No problem, the dog had to work hard to find them.
Shooting penned birds straight from the pen to train dogs? That's only if the trainer knows what they are doing and they are REALLY training dogs. Mine didn't need this, he knew what to do from field bird hunting.
Injuring pigeons to train dogs? That one turns my stomach a bit, but if the trainer really knows what they are doing.... ehhh.. I don't like that one but would rely on the trainer to know the difference between training and animal cruelty for no purpose. My dog didn't need it.
- "Some folks just need to be shot but cannibalism is wrong." - my dad.
