BigGameHoundsmen.com

Ethics is an interesting topic. Years ago Outdoor Life had an article named, "They Shoot Pike Don't They" talking about hunters in Vermont shooting pike out of a lake with high powered rifles. The article dug into whether that was ethical or not, and comments were made about ethics being a local thing that evolved with a sport. Laws come along and change those traditional ethics from time to time and people move on.

An example was the early day lion hunters that many of us are so proud of. The stories told of their deed clearly show many of the early lion hunters killed everything, from the toms, to females to their young and same with the bears. None of us ever question their ethics because there wasn't any laws to protect the mountain lion, matter fact their goal was to wipe them from the west in many cases. Laws came along and protected the mountain lion, gave it game status and put seasons and limits on the population, but it laws that protected the lions not lion hunter ethics.

What great a statement. Laws save lions not lion hunters. I think I shall stand up at the next rac meeting and with the rest of the antis use your words of wisdom

Sackett wrote:None of us ever questioned their ethics because there wasn't any laws to protect the mountain lion, matter fact their goal was to wipe them from the west in many cases. Laws came along and protected the mountain lion, gave it game status and put seasons and limits on the population, but it laws that protected the lions not lion hunter ethics.

Exactly, so now that we are almost there, let's put some honorable ethics to it and live happily ever after!

Sackett for Pres...

ok every body here a qustion for ya, think back when you went on your first lion hunt did a female die???? ok now think back when you first got that good lookin bluetic and turn out with your buddys dogs did a female die????????? or when you tuned out with your wifes dad that had a tag did a female die ????????????? or that rancher that came do you and showed you that lion kill did that female ????? or your best friend that had a tag and you could not talk him out of it did that one ??????????? as for me i have never killed a cat or bought a tag. but when i first when on lion hunt one did and one when i turned out my pups with someone else. so two for me both old missing teeth so how can i go around pointing fingers and dropin names like i some kind of law dawg writin IOU an ass chewin ticket...thats what gets me every one has been under a tree when one hit the ground....... weather your dogs, pups, or you was under the tree. and if you have never seen one die i respect you but ask yourself how many toms have i seen killed and how did that affect the amount of cat tracks i cut.. it takes two a female and male..........

deerchaser101 wrote:ok every body here a qustion for ya, think back when you went on your first lion hunt did a female die???? ok now think back when you first got that good lookin bluetic and turn out with your buddys dogs did a female die????????? or when you tuned out with your wifes dad that had a tag did a female die ????????????? or that rancher that came do you and showed you that lion kill did that female ????? or your best friend that had a tag and you could not talk him out of it did that one ??????????? as for me i have never killed a cat or bought a tag. but when i first when on lion hunt one did and one when i turned out my pups with someone else. so two for me both old missing teeth so how can i go around pointing fingers and dropin names like i some kind of law dawg writin IOU an ass chewin ticket...thats what gets me every one has been under a tree when one hit the ground....... weather your dogs, pups, or you was under the tree. and if you have never seen one die i respect you but ask yourself how many toms have i seen killed and how did that affect the amount of cat tracks i cut.. it takes two a female and male..........

That would be a no to all those questions. I suspect there is a few guys that can answer the same way. I would hope so anyway. and I've had friends, clients etc. beg me to shoot said femail and the answer has always been the same... NO. I'd rather sleep at night then be a hero.

When people pay to go hunting in africa do they shoot the KING of the jungle or the queen??? When I got into hounds about 18yrs ago once in a while you heard of someone killing a female BUT it was always a very old no teeth left, struggling to survive female.....NOT one of these non trophy 80 pounders that's being killed now

Bplott, I really have no issues with what you're saying about people killing females but I do have to argue one point. I don't think this is a new trend. I think information travels better. Between the internet and cell phones the word just gets out better. 18 years ago you either had to see the dead lion or go to a guys house and look at his photo album to get a look at a picture of it. All of this said, DWR doesn't care about the lions. We are just beating our head against the wall by pounding the internet with the rhetoric. I think maybe the Utah hound clubs should get together and hire a lobbyist in SLC to hit the legislators. That's where the real business is done. Although I'm not sure how you go about it with out shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe we need a lion hunter on the wildlife board.

Somethings definately gota changes or we won't have a lion left here in utah

Bplott wrote:Somethings definately gota changes or we won't have a lion left here in utah

There will always be lions here in utah. no matter how many 80 lb females hit the ground. there is so much back country in utah that doesn't get touched by lion hunters that we will always have source units with breeding pairs to replentish the population. we are dam lucky of this fact because if not for that they would go extinct with the current trend. I for one am bothered more by the quality , age and weight of these cats now days. do you think it would be possable to get dwr to make a few units in the state trophy, tom only units. this would be great in many ways. you could actually go out and tree some booners and these units would act as source units for the rest of the state. there's always gona be that dipshit that shoots the 80 lb female, or the outfitter that wipes out the female and her two subs. I don't think any amount of head bangin on this thread will change that so lets try to move in a posotive direction. what do we have to do to get a couple trophy units?

houndnem wrote:

Bplott wrote:Somethings definately gota changes or we won't have a lion left here in utah

There will always be lions here in utah. what do we have to do to get a couple trophy units?

Lobby...Lobby...Lobby + time + distance + money = Tom only units => IMO

However, what units are Politically and Biologically correct?

houndnem wrote:

Bplott wrote:Somethings definately gota changes or we won't have a lion left here in utah

There will always be lions here in utah. no matter how many 80 lb females hit the ground. there is so much back country in utah that doesn't get touched by lion hunters that we will always have source units with breeding pairs to replentish the population. we are dam lucky of this fact because if not for that they would go extinct with the current trend. I for one am bothered more by the quality , age and weight of these cats now days. do you think it would be possable to get dwr to make a few units in the state trophy, tom only units. this would be great in many ways. you could actually go out and tree some booners and these units would act as source units for the rest of the state. there's always gona be that dipshit that shoots the 80 lb female, or the outfitter that wipes out the female and her two subs. I don't think any amount of head bangin on this thread will change that so lets try to move in a posotive direction. what do we have to do to get a couple trophy units?

So you are saying leave the guys alone who kill every female that they can get ahold of because there are a few places where the lions arnt touched. So those few places are going to sustain the entire state of utah... logically that makes no sense, when the lions are killed out everywhere else good luck drawing a tag to get into one of those units left over. If some anti group doesnt have them listed by then....

Bplott wrote:When people pay to go hunting in africa do they shoot the KING of the jungle or the queen??? When I got into hounds about 18yrs ago once in a while you heard of someone killing a female BUT it was always a very old no teeth left, struggling to survive female.....NOT one of these non trophy 80 pounders that's being killed now

That's the exact opposite of what I have been around since I started tagging along. When I was a kid and my dad was running hounds lions hit the dirt. I never even heard of someone letting a female go. That was just the way things were and no one thought anything of it. Now a days I hear more and more guys say let the ladies live. I know some of these guys that are now saying it were the same way we were. But have now they have started to see whats going on. I dont know if it is because they dont want to see the season closed down early or they want all the females to stay alive. But more females seem to be walking away from trees instead of being drug away.

Some guys that are still killing everything they tree, but they are also getting alot of heat from it too.

Dead female lions are not very impressive, they look much better alive. However, ranchers and outfitters are not the devil, like they're being portrayed here.

J.C. Call wrote:Dead female lions are not very impressive, they look much better alive. However, ranchers and outfitters are not the devil, like they're being portrayed here.

I'm not so sure.............................. Anytime you insert money into an issue, you're views become blurry. But surely they aren't the only ones to blame.

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=18825

People that either don't know or can't sex a lion kill them over the season and are proud of their harvest. Some of those people never take or hunt again, but they have great memories of their experience even though it wasn't a monster tom. By making a "tom only unit" what do you propose we do with people who make a mistake and take a female?

Presently, Utah slaps a felony charge on an illegal harvest but often times allows them to plead down to a Class A misdemeanor and give them a healthy fine, then take their license for five to seven years. Are those the charges we plan to enforce on a person mistaking a female for a tom lion? It's pretty easy to see antlers on a buck and tell that it is a buck, but even some of the guides like Big Horn made a mistake on this one. Is that where we should go with protecting the population, remove people from the sport who make a mistake?