Tag: ethics

June 5, 2025 – The Ethics and the Reality of Hunting

June 5, 2025 /

I enjoy the show Life Below Zero. When I first started watching it, I believe that it was 2019. I remember finishing all the episodes on Netflix in my early days of ‘retirement’. I would take the time to find tasks that I could do with the TV on such as sewing patches on the kid’s Boy Scout uniforms. Then I kind of forgot about it until we were in Montana for Thanksgiving.

Most AirBnBs today have internet and the idea is you will log into your services on the TV. My wife had logged into Hulu and I was up several hours earlier than everybody else. I decided that I would put on some background show while I worked on clean-up and breakfast for the day. I found that Hulu had some seasons of Life Below Zero that I had not seen.

That got me thinking about filling in the gaps. I found out that Disney Plus had all of the seasons and episodes. Low and behold, we pay for that as well so I started catching up where I left of on Netflix. This is one of those shows that has a lot of reality to it. But, I have noticed that it has a lot of not reality as well. For instance, they will play up a character that lives 200 miles from the nearest town and yet they will have a snowmobile or four wheeler that requires a significant amount of fuel in between trips to town.

It feels like characters actually run out of things to do. Not every episode but frequent enough they are building a hot tub in the middle of nowhere. One character built a solar powered boat. I mean, these are people that are supposed to be hustling to make it? Let’s not kid ourselves, they get paid to be on the show and that salary affords them luxuries that non-TV stars don’t have, like fuel drops by airplane.

Hunting has a huge share of the TV time on the show. As such, I have noticed some discrepancies between what I would expect under the American ethos and what happens on TV. For example, it is considered unethical to shoot turkeys from a roosting position. Turkeys fly into the trees at night and come down to the ground in the morning. The ‘proper’ way to hunt turkeys is on the ground. Well, Alaska does not have any turkeys so that is not an issue.

In the show, nearly every single waterfowl is shot on the water. That is supposed to be a no no for bird hunters. With the exception of turkeys and grouse, birds are supposed to be shot in the air according to hunting ethos. Make no mistake, this is not illegal but it is considered non-sporting.

Another thing that I see all the time is bad shooting. It can be caribou quartering away (this means with the butt facing the shooter) or shooting into a herd of animals. A huge part of hunter’s safety is shoot/don’t shoot. If you cannot clearly identify and isolate your target then that should be a don’t shoot. You wouldn’t want to accidently wound a second animal or damage the meat that you are hunting for.

If this were a show like Meat Eater, that kind of film would never make it to the final product. They go out of their way to do everything by the book even to the point of punching their tag if they cannot recover a wounded animal. My guess is that the producers at National Geographic have no idea what the ethics of hunting entails.

Life Below Zero is a dichotomy of should and should not. I am amazed at the number of times there is a nuisance predator that they devise all kinds of schemes to chase the undesirables away rather than just killing it. Much of the reasoning comes from Native American spirituality than from ethics even if it is within the legal purview to eliminate the problem.

There is a lot of talk about the reverence of the animal and the eco-system in general. Animals that I don’t consider food, primarily fur bearers get eaten. Most trappers here would discard a beaver or muskrat once skinned. I am not clear what happens to the rare fox or lynx. I have seen where natives burn the wolverine due to cultural belief. While many of the harvesting methods can be questionable, there is no doubt that killing is serious business to not be taken flippantly.

I think what we are seeing is hunting for survival. The rules of ethics were developed as a result of shooting a million bison from trains just for the hide and tongue. With these modern tools, we should have some limits to make it fair for the animal and to not entirely eliminate the species. When it comes to survival, many of those artificial limits are out the window. It is not self serving to eliminate the species and the number one rule is to actually survive.

End Your Programming Routine: Salary aside, hunting is very important for food procurement. I could name some other things that I have seen on TV to support my discussion today but I would also point out that there are some things that natives can do that non-natives cannot. I would point out that I am not an expert in ethics, Alaska law or a lot of other things related to the show and I don’t think that Nat Geo is intentionally exposing questionable processes. But, I think that they would do better to craft a message to the ethical hunter’s expectations.

May 8, 2023 – Ethics and Laws

May 8, 2023 /

Just like when I read Atlas Shrugged and came upon the philosophical concept that ‘A is A’ this connection hit me in the face when I was writing about Animal Farm. I had never made the association that laws are moral when they fit our ethics. I have heard and even said, that law is immoral but I didn’t really get it.

But even more so than that, I finally figured out why all these things bother me. Despite the fact that I have little control over it, many of these laws violate my ethics. Don’t tell me what to do, dont prohibit by law items that have no victims, honor our tradition and culture. I don’t know, I have never sat down and figured them out. Maybe I should do that?

End Your Programming Routine: At the end of my podcast I holistically came to the phrase, “do things that matter”. This is what I try to do with all of the do-it-yourself projects and demonstrations that I do. But, I don’t emphasize that aspect of what I am trying to do enough (another epiphany). I try to offer ways to deal with programming, but I didn’t recognize that there is a second part to my tagline that I have left on the vine for far too long.

June 16, 2020 – Whose fault is this?

June 16, 2020 /

It has been said that some businesses have excellent return policies. These companies have come to mind Costco, Nordstrom and Amazon. Other companies offer no excuse, 100% lifetime warranties like Orvis and Lands End. That is a different criteria but an example of the breadth of differences with companies and products.

A few years ago, I needed some new shoes for an upcoming half marathon. This was a time when I was working a lot and shoes are a very personal thing. It seems like some brands need some miles on them to become comfortable while others comfort fades. Some brands seem to comfortable for everyday wear and others never. It is very difficult to know with a store fitting and always somewhat of a gamble.

It was late in the evening, like nine PM and I couldn’t decide. I was persuaded to get both, run in both and return the ones I didn’t like. I did, and I hated myself the whole time. I didn’t think that running in shoes for a week and returning them was the right thing to do. What happens to those shoes? Are they sold as new again?

Recently I bought some roof jacks from a home center. I was in a hurry when I grabbed them and they looked a little scuffed up. Overall, no big deal. When I got home and looked at them more carefully, I could clearly see signs that these had been used and returned. The scrape patter of sliding on shingles, the nail marks from where they were fastened, the tar from shingle contact, etc.

Now, these are items that will last a lifetime, especially at my usage level. There really is no harm in them being used, and obviously lightly. But, it got me thinking of the psychology of someone using something and then returning it (again).

I have bought the ‘open package’ before and low and behold it was missing some critical component. I just dont know if the missing part was removed or carelessly not returned. With today’s customer service at stores, their only real recourse is to replace the entire contents rather than make it whole which is another hassle. So, I have become a person that avoids obviously opened packaged because I have been burned by the consequences too many times.

See my post about Amazon Warehouse. They clearly did not inspect the item as the policy states or they would have known that they did not even get the same part back.

On my current project, I mistakenly bought 5lbs of 3 1/2″ box nails instead of sinkers. I didn’t even notice for weeks because I was working out of another source. I hadnt even opened them but I was going to refill my working container and noticed that they were the wrong type. So, I returned them because I can never see myself using those nails (in that quantity). In that case, the package was unopened and as new.

So, I get down to the fundamental question. Who’s fault is it when something clearly used is sold on a store shelf? Is it the returner who treats the item as a loaner? It is the store who is unable/unwilling to make a judgement on accepting items for return and by the same turn resells used items as new? Or is the consumer who expects that everything is new including the price?

Not surprisingly, I think a little bit of all three. It first starts with ethics. If a store’s policy and practice are to accept all items, regardless of condition then that is OK. To try and return the item in as un-used is not. If the store wants to resell used items, that is OK. I would like a discount (or at least a warning so that I pay more attention to the selection). The consumer should not mindlessly grab and go if these factors are important.

Multiple times, I have grabbed items from the same bin which turned out to be different. Things like pipe fittings and cabinet hardware come to mind. I now pay a lot more attention to make sure that I getting what I think that I am getting. I would like to point out that this seems to be much less so at the small hardware stores. Not only is the customer service more personal, they know their inventory and do a better job making sure things are in the right place. They also tend to have much less inventory which makes a different sized pipe fitting stand out much easier.

In the end, I just want to know that some items could be used and I will decide whether I want to shop there or purchase there.