I have and will continue to notify authorities anytime I see anyone dispatch an animal in an unlawful manner. There are some things that are wrong. Remember, all evil needs to continue is for good people to look the other way. Sorry, but I ain't one to look the other way.
To argue that any and all wildlife violations are equally wrong or evil is being unfair in my opinion.
Geese can be a real problem in some areas for farmers. Here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon we get invaded by them every fall. It is very difficult to hunt them using legal methods. You can set out a couple of hundred decoys, but if there are thousand live cackling geese in a nearby field, guess where the geese are going to go?
I could never illegally shoot a goose myself, though. Heck, I cannot even bring myself to shoot ducks sitting in the water, despite the fact that it is totally legal to do so when duck hunting. Shooting a "sitting duck" just does not seem very sporting to me. But geese can become a varmint and a real nuisance in some areas. So I can understand why someone could want to shoot one.
I know a fellow who sometimes shoots seagulls at a dump when he is bored. Now seagulls are not a game bird, and are completely federally and state protected. Yet, they inundate many areas, often to the detriment of other bird populations. But since they are a useful scavenger, they are completely protected.
So far this fellow has not been caught. And since the dead bodies all land in the dump, they get filled over. I could never bring myself to do that myself, though, since I know that it is a clear violation. To me, it is certainly not worth the risk of being caught.
The fellow is a good and decent person and sportsman in every other respect. I'm not going to personally condemn him, much less report him to authorities, over a few dead seagulls.
Now if someone did something like shoot a deer or an elk out of season, or even shot one during hunting season for the thrill and left the animal to waste, I would report that sort of violation if I had the opportunity.
One fellow who I went varmint hunting a few times with told me about how he had come across a doe deer that Spring, while scouting for new varmint hunting grounds. He shot the doe with his .223 Varmint rifle, and it quickly died. Once the deer was dead, he then realized what a major game violation he had committed, and he immediately fled the area, leaving the deer's body to waste.
After he told me that story that day, I could never speak with him again, much less go hunting with him. He really got upset with me for ending our friendship.
When I first met him he told me that he was in Internet marketing. However, after I got to know him, he admitted to me that he was a professional spammer. And that he promoted websites using unethical and illegal means. He told me how he considered big FCC fines that he got hit with just another cost of doing business. So I was already feeling very uneasy about him as a person, when he admitted to me his poaching of the deer.
I sometimes wonder what he is doing now, since laws against spamming are now much stricter than they were back then. No doubt he has found a new profitable area to exploit.
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