When Hunting Laws Clash With Ethics – The Debate Over What’s Legal vs. What’s Right

What happens when the letter of the law and the spirit of the hunt point in different directions?

That’s the uncomfortable question raised by Tim Sundles, owner of Buffalo Bore Ammunition, and his wife, former elected district attorney Kim Sundles. In a candid conversation, they argue that real-life decisions in the field don’t always fit neatly into bureaucratic rules. Their message is provocative: sometimes the morally right choice doesn’t line up with what’s legal.

You don’t have to agree with every conclusion to see the tension they’re pointing to. It’s a tension as old as game laws themselves.

“Legal” and “Right” Aren’t Always Twins

Tim Sundles opens the door to the debate with a case from his wife’s time as a DA.

In midwinter, an unemployed father shot a doe to feed his family. He was caught, and the local wildlife officers wanted to throw the book at him. Kim’s reaction was different. To her, the man’s choice, though illegal, was understandable and arguably defensible in context. 

She didn’t pretend the statute didn’t exist; she simply questioned whether punishment served justice in that specific scenario.

That distinction matters. Prosecutorial discretion exists for a reason. Laws are blunt. Human situations are not.

My take? The hunting community benefits when prosecutors can weigh context, while still signaling that “just in case” poaching and wanton exploitation won’t fly. It’s a narrow path, but the alternative is a justice system that can’t distinguish between a desperate parent and a scofflaw trophy thief.

Helping Hands, Hard Lines

Tim’s stories push the conversation from theory to practice.

He describes an elderly neighbor, Clinton, who had always relied on elk meat but could no longer climb the mountains or shoot safely. Clinton still bought a tag; Tim or another neighbor would do the hunting and deliver the meat. 

As Tim tells it, this ran afoul of certain state rules about who may fill which tag and how meat can be transferred.

Another example: Tim’s family would buy tags, and when some didn’t want to hunt, he’d fill them and share elk with local families in need. He frames the tag as a kind of “tax” to responsibly harvest a common resource – and the meat as community nutrition, not commerce.

Here’s the rub. Wildlife laws generally aim to prevent precisely these gray zones – third-party tagging, proxy hunting, and any arrangement that can blur into commercialization or abuse. 

The enforcement logic is understandable: once you permit “good-faith” exceptions, bad actors exploit them.

But the human logic is compelling, too. If a legal resident buys a tag and asks a trusted neighbor to harvest, is that fundamentally different from a neighbor pushing a wheelchair to the firing line at a duck blind? The law often says yes; the hunting culture’s ethic of mutual aid often says no.

My view is that states have untapped room for flexibility here. Expand assisted-harvest programs and caretaker permits for the elderly and disabled. 

Simplify gifting pathways for legally tagged meat with traceable tags/transfers. Make it easy to do the right thing the right way.

Waste, Wolves, and the “Hypocrisy” Charge

Tim and Kim also target what they see as contradictions in wildlife policy.

They argue that “wanton waste” rules sometimes become detached from reality. In deep wilderness, salvaging every ounce – rib trimmings, bloodied neck meat – can be impractical or even unsanitary. In their experience, those scraps feed coyotes, magpies, foxes, and bears. In nature, they say, very little is wasted.

From a regulation standpoint, wanton waste laws exist to uphold respect for game and deter grisly abuses – leaving animals to rot, taking just antlers or backstraps, or walking away from edible quarters because packing is hard. 

Those are real problems. Yet the Sundles’ critique highlights a legitimate edge case: remote field conditions where “complete salvage” isn’t feasible without contaminating meat.

The same theme recurs in Tim’s anger about wolf reintroduction. He claims wolves sometimes kill far more elk than they eat during deep-snow conditions, while hunters face stiff penalties if a few pounds of low-value meat aren’t recovered. He calls that a double standard.

Wildlife science would answer that predators and scavengers have co-evolved with ungulates; carcass cycling supports ecosystems in ways a human hunter can’t replicate. Fair enough. But the policy conversation could still acknowledge practical salvage realities. 

Some states already do, with definitions that emphasize quarters and backstraps and exempt visibly spoiled or contaminated trimmings when conditions make full recovery impossible.

That’s good policy design: protect the resource and the ethic without turning common sense into a misdemeanor.

Depredation, Disability, and “Righteous” Assistance

One of Tim’s most pointed anecdotes involves a rancher with cataracts who held depredation tags to protect alfalfa fields. The man was wounding and missing because he couldn’t see well enough. He asked Tim to shoot two cows on his property so the meat could feed his household. Tim obliged.

Is that righteous help – or a rules violation? Often, the answer depends on the fine print: who’s the named tag holder, who may take the shot, and how the kill must be reported. 

Most states have specific depredation frameworks because they balance private loss with public wildlife ownership. If they’re hard to navigate, they can alienate the very landowners whose cooperation keeps migratory herds alive.

Rather than scolding ranchers (or neighbors who step in), agencies could widen authorized helper provisions for clearly documented impairments, especially in depredation situations where the harvest is sanctioned to prevent economic harm. 

Again, the goal is not to “wink at the law,” but to design the law for the realities it governs.

Kim and Tim also vent about pandemic-era inconsistencies – wildlife offices closed to the public while vendors still sold licenses face-to-face. To them, that smelled like “rules for thee, not for me.”

You don’t need to relitigate 2020 to see how quickly public trust erodes when rules feel arbitrary. In hunting, where compliance is largely voluntary and enforcement resources are thin, trust is the currency. Agencies should spend it wisely. Transparency, consistency, and humility pay dividends long after tempers cool.

The Hunter’s Compass vs. The Codebook

There’s a deeper question under all of this: what is “hunting ethics,” really?

For a lot of us, it’s a triangle – respect for the animal, respect for the law, respect for the community. 

Those three points can tug in different directions. Tim leans hard on the first and third. Kim’s career taught her the second matters, too – but not as an absolute when the facts demand mercy.

Where do I land? Ethics should drive you to obey the law and to advocate for better law when it clashes with common sense. It’s not noble to break rules in silence; it’s better to help fix them in daylight. Support reforms that make ethical behavior easy and abuse difficult:

• Assisted harvest permits for elderly, disabled, and medically limited hunters.
• Clearer salvage standards that prioritize clean, packable meat and account for contamination in remote conditions.
• Streamlined meat gifting and donation with traceability, so families in need benefit without legal gray areas.
• Flexible depredation helper rules where impairment is documented and reporting is tight.
• Stronger communications from agencies about the why behind rules, with channels for field feedback.

The punchline is boring but true: good policy shrinks the gap between legal and right.

A Final Word on Responsibility

Tim and Kim speak with passion because hunting is woven into their lives – feeding neighbors, managing ranch damage, spending seasons in the backcountry. You can feel the sincerity, whether or not you share their conclusions. But passion doesn’t make any of us bulletproof.

If you hunt, you own your choices. Know your state’s laws. Honor the animal by planning for recovery before you squeeze the trigger. Ask your warden questions before the season. Document permission, tags, and transfers properly. 

And if you see a rule that turns decent people into technical violators, don’t just rage about it – help rewrite it.

Because the best hunting cultures aren’t built on loopholes or lectures, they’re built on honest meat, honest tags, and honest conversations – like the one the Sundles just forced us all to have.

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