Bingo. This is the point of this thread. Why go hunting with a tool you’re not as effective with? The answer is because it makes the hunter feel good, not that it’s the most lethal or humane choice.
All this nonsense about proficiency is irrelevant, because no matter if you’re using a blowgun, bow, or bazooka, proficiency is a given. You must be good with a tool to use it on animals. If you’re not, that would be unethical.
So again, rephrasing the OP’s question, is trad archery unethical? I say no, because it’s legal, but I can see others arguing it is precisely because there are better tools available.
You are thinking about this very differently, I would say incorrectly, but thats my opinion—and I think thats where the disconnect is. Proficiency is very much not a given, nor is sound judgment. That’s easy to show definitively, have two people shoot the same rifle at the same target at pretty long range, one of them intimately knows that rifle and cartridge and how it drifts in the wind, and the other having never shot a rifle before outside the very basics. You’ll very quickly see that one person is capable of making first round hits from a field position at much further range than the other…yet they can both buy the same hunting license. By your ethical argument we should limit the proficient shooter based on the lack of proficiency of the unpracticed one. I dont think that makes sense— i’d rather hold the unpracticed shooter accountable for their judgment, and see them practice to become more proficient.
To me, a trad bow versus a compound is no different than a 30-30 out of a lever gun with iron sights, versus a 300 win mag out of a scoped precision rifle. Both are certain killers within their effective range, so I dont think it’s correct to say that one is “more effective” or “more lethal”—only that one may stretch the range at which it is effective or reduce the skill required to attain similar effectiveness. Same with muzzleloaders versus rifles, etc. The reason we have various seasons is to maximize opportunity for hunters, all around management goals based on
efficacy— efficacy is different than effectiveness, and thats a critical difference in this case. Efficacy is the odds of a hunter getting a critter inside the effective range of the weapon/hunter. But inside the effective range, dead=dead, there is no ethical question there. Ethics only comes in to play after a person makes the poor judgement call to try to use a weapon outside of its effective range, or (more likely) outside the hunters capability. This is why Im saying that the weapon itself—which is plenty lethal, plenty effective within its inherent limitations—isnt the ethical question.
Also, when I choose to use a weapon that reduces my efficacy, I do that to make it harder. It’s harder because it forces me to get closer in order to stay within its and my capability. Yes, “making it harder” is ultimately about making the hunter feel good, but seems different than how you said that. It does not mean its any less effective or less humane, that part is 100% in the hunters control to pass shots beyond their or the equipments capability.
To echo the post above, the reason I’m harping on this is that it has significant implications for hunting policy. You cannot make the argument that a reduced-range weapon itself is unethical, without opening the door for the exact same argument to be used against all other weapons using the exact same argument. It really is important for hunters to own their own ethics, and not allow other people to transfer ethics off the hunter and onto the tools that we know are affective and humane killers in the right hands.
You summed it up well in one sentence.
