Duck Hunting 101: Laws and Ethics

By Teresa Milner

What’s legal isn’t always ethical. And sometimes, actions that you consider ethical might violate the law. It’s like one of those standardized test questions saying all skeets are snurts but not all skurts are sneets.

Why should you care about laws or ethics? Understanding your legal obligations and establishing your ethical code is the sign of a mature sportsman or sportswoman. That knowledge is crucial to your safety and to the future of hunting and conservation. We talked with experts about why following laws and acting ethically are keys to keeping our hunting traditions alive and well.

Legal Standards

Legal standards are laws created by governments. They dictate what you can and cannot legally do. These laws are enforced by governments and their agents. We have many laws dictating our behavior—for example, how fast we can drive, when we have to pay taxes, and how old we need to be to vote. Hunting, fishing, and other outdoor sports also have laws that tell us what we can and cannot do. These include laws governing the species of waterfowl we can hunt, when we can hunt them, how many we can harvest, and even the kind of ammunition we can use.

Ethical Standards

Ethical standards, on the other hand, are entirely personal. They are your own code of conduct and are governed only by you. Your ethics are shaped by your values and principles. Where laws tell us what we can and cannot do, our personal ethics tell us how we should behave. For example, your ethics may keep you from sky busting, shooting ducks on the water, or shooting hens, even though these actions aren’t necessarily illegal.

Aldo Leopold, long considered the father of wildlife management, put it this way: “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching—even when doing the wrong thing is legal.”

Laws and Safety

Why do wildlife agencies and hunting organizations spend so much time talking about laws and ethics? It boils down to two basic principles—safety and conservation. Hunting laws aren’t in place to put a damper on an otherwise great morning in the blind. Laws actually keep us and others safe.

Brian Schaffer, hunter education coordinator for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, says many hunting laws and hunter safety programs were enacted in the 1940s and ’50s. “After the Second World War, there was a drastic increase in the number of people that were out hunting, both for food and for recreation,” Schaffer says. “Through the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s we started to see an increase in accidents. We were looking for ways to reduce the number of those accidents in the field. So in the ’60s and ’70s, a lot of states implemented hunter education programs.” Mandatory hunter safety education, with a strong focus on firearms safety, along with new regulations such as requiring blaze orange for some hunters, helped decrease hunting-related accidents.

Laws and Healthy Wildlife Populations

Hunting laws and regulations also help biologists maintain healthy populations of wildlife. By the late 1800s, people began to understand that unregulated hunting and fishing was a threat to wildlife populations. Some once-prolific species had been hunted almost to the brink of extinction. Hunters and conservationists formed organizations such as the Izaak Walton League, the Wildlife Management Institute, and American Wild Fowlers (a predecessor of Ducks Unlimited) to support hunting laws and wildlife restoration. Soon, state and federal legislators began enacting laws to regulate hunting and fishing and appointed game wardens to enforce those laws.

Hunting laws and regulations are still used today to protect individual species and overall populations. Regulations governing open and closed seasons, daily bag limits, possession limits, and many other aspects of hunting help biologists control the numbers of wildlife harvested during the season and ensure healthy populations for the future.

Why Are Ethics Important to Hunting?

According to Schaffer, the focus of today’s hunter education programs has shifted from being mostly about firearms safety to broader topics including laws and ethics. So why are ethics important? For Schaffer, it boils down to a simple reason: to give people a positive image of hunting so that we can continue to hunt. “Roughly 80 percent of the people in the United States accept hunting, as long as wildlife are being harvested legally and the meat is used,” Schaffer says.

Today, topics covered in hunter education classes include things like the concept of fair chase, developing positive relationships with landowners, contributing to conservation efforts, and projecting a positive image of hunting in the community. These issues aren’t covered under hunting laws, but they are important parts of hunting ethics.

Outdoor writer and former Wyoming Wildlife magazine editor Chris Madson has written about hunting ethics for years. He too believes that strong outdoor ethics are crucial to our ability to hunt and fish in the future. “Aldo Leopold said ‘A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct,’” Madson says. “I understand what he’s saying but I have to disagree with him. The hunter really does have any number of people looking over his or her shoulder saying ‘What are you doing? Are you doing this right?’”

Develop Your Own Code

According to Schaffer and Madson, ethics are also about understanding how others view you as a person and perceive hunting. Beyond the laws, the best hunters have a strong sense of ethics that dictates their behavior in the field. Developing those ethics is challenging because there’s no official list of ethical and unethical actions. But experienced hunters like Schaffer and Madson promote a few general ideas: respecting wildlife, respecting the land, respecting other hunters, and respecting nonhunters.

Some examples of positive waterfowl hunting ethics:

• Don’t set up too close to another party.
• Bring working birds in close and take high-percentage shots.
• Make every effort to immediately retrieve each bird you shoot.
• Pack out what you pack in.
• Mentor a new hunter.
• Don’t take graphic photographs of harvested birds or display them in a way that is disrespectful.

“I think of hunting as a discipline, not a sport,” Madson says. “There’s a way of doing it that tests the hunter and tests the quarry . . . the mettle of both. And in the end, it leaves grace and dignity for both the hunter and the hunted.”

Keep Good Company

Both Schaffer and Madson feel that a good mentor can help us understand the discipline of hunting and develop a strong sense of ethics. Madson credits his father for teaching him about wildlife and hunting ethics. He urges young hunters to find someone they know and trust to mentor them as hunters and conservationists. If you don’t have access to a great teacher, Madson believes that reading works from the forefathers of conservation is another great way to hone your ethics. He recommends Aldo Leopold, Jim Posewitz, and Robert Ruark, among others.

You Are Part of a Tradition

What challenge does Madson, a self-proclaimed curmudgeon, have for new hunters? “You are the most recent addition to a tradition that is as old as mankind itself,” he says. “Thousands of generations of humans have gone on the hunt. I hope that you live up to the standards that all those people who have preceded you have set. It’s a challenge, but it’s a pleasant challenge. And it’s something that will make you feel a lot better about yourself.”