I'll admit I have a very biased opinion. I do not like Greentree. He seems like an overly dramatic attention whore. But even knowing that, I still hope I can provide some arguments that change how people view this incident (especially those that are using the "pest" argument), which I find pretty disturbing for a professional hunter who claims to be big on ethics, conservation, etc.
I feel like the article is pretty biased itself and downplays Greentree's actions, especially considering the use of the quotes "pest" and "game animal" (what is the writer quoting?! how about a source bro). But lets even assume that the article has no bias. Nothing here says that red deer are actually pests in the National Park. The article (and who knows where it is getting its information) says that the deer are "managed" as a pest. As someone stated earlier, they are actually classified as game animals, and the article mentions this as well, although also in quotes. In comparison, I could easily say that Bison are managed as a pest in Yellowstone. I mean 1,200 were killed in 2017 alone.(
https://www.yellowstonepark.com/park/culling-last-wild-herd-bison). Go kill a Bison in or around Yellowstone and see if one of our judges says "Meh, that's okay. We were going to kill a bunch of them anyways so its just one less that we have to cull." This is the comparison I feel you should be using. Not the ridiculous coyote one. A coyote has never been classified as a game animal. And again, I can't stress the fact that it says MANAGED as a "pest". What does that even mean? Managed like Bison are in Yellowstone? Managed like Deer are in certain National Wildlife Refuges where they give out a limited amount of archery tags each season to keep the numbers low because they are "pests". Or maybe they are managed as "pests" just like every game animal is managed here in the states. Would I technically be wrong if I said "Deer are classified as "game animals" here in the United States, but they are managed like "pests" because of all the damage they cause from car collisions." To a lot of people, this is a true statement, especially to those that use population control as an argument in favor of hunting. So until someone provides a little more insight on the "pest" thing, then I am going to focus on the actual fact. They are classified/declared a game animal.
The second reason I think this incident is more egregious than people are admitting is because the DPI (Aussie's Fish and Game I guess) thought that Greentree's actions were serious enough to warrant a pretty intensive investigation. I mean they saw some pictures on social media and decided that those pictures alone were enough to warrant an investigation, which then led them to hike out into the National Park and actually find the carcass of the deer. I mean, they could have hiked around out there for hours or even multiple days and found absolutely nothing, and they still thought it was worth their time to try and build a case against him, even with the risk that nothing would come of it. I don't know many game wardens here that would go through all that work if someone killed a coyote and posted it on social media, as some of you would like to compare to this incident. I feel pretty bad for the DPI. Can you imagine going through all that work to gather evidence, build a case, bring charges, wait months while he delayed the court dates and then have him actually PLEAD GUILTY, just to have the Judge/Magistrate say "yea but its your first time and they were pests. Get outta here you ol' goofball! No conviction!"
To me, it seems that the Magistrate just doesn't know/care about hunting rules and regulations and why they are so important. ESPECIALLY if you are a public figure in hunting. (Honestly I think there was something deeper going on like the magistrate was his friend or something, but I'm not going to use that as the main argument because it'll never be proven.) But again, I'll admit I'm biased cause I just do not like the guy. That still doesn't mean that what he did was I feel a lot more serious than "shooting a coyote" as some of you suggest. Its the fact that he has made his career out of the hunting industry, so yes he will be held to a much higher standard than every other hunter.