One South African gundog association states the following on their Facebook page:

"Wingshooting should never be carried out without a trained gundog. It is highly unethical and cruel to shoot and wound a bird, then leave it suffering because you cannot find it. A good dog will find a wounded or dead bird in the veld and bring it to the handler to have for dinner later."

What do you make of the above statement?

I think it is a bit elitist.

Thousands of people in the U S. kill millions of doves without a dog.

Maybe 5% aren't recovered, is my guess.

Agree with you Fireman.

It's very much elitist.

That's what we have kids for.

maybe with doves, certainly not with pheasant, and even quail, always hunted with dogs, many times would never would have found with out

having been an avid dove hunter, outfitter, guide, i agree about the dogs, but believe the loss rate is much higher. lots of wounded birds die 100 plus yards out, dog or no dog.

and then you go to Argentina where you shoot thousands of migrating dove daily, and most of those birds are picked up by young locals and fed to the pigs there. Hunters come back to camp to have a steak & drink whiskey. This bleading heart "ethical" nonsense is exhausting.

Hunting over a good dog is a pleasure but good pheasant dogs are few and far between due to the pheasant running so much. I’d rather hunt pheasant without a dog if it’s not specifically trained for pheasant.

Maybe I lose 5%, since I didn't hit that many doves in the first place.

Wounded and not found dead birds feed the local wildlife,, raccoons, coyotes, birds( yes birds, I have seen grackles , crows, hawks, etc. eating dead birds), pigs, snakes , every thing you can think of eats them. That being said, hunting is more fun with a dog that retrieves.

I posted this on their Facebook page:

I agree that it is unethical to hunt out of season and to exceed the bag limit. Not mentioned in your post is that it would be unethical to use inappropriate shot size or to take long shots outside of your shotgun's effective range as that will result in wounded birds. There is no doubt that, for many people, seeing the dog work and doing what it was bred to do is half (or more) of the enjoyment. I'm sure we have all heard of old timers who have hung up their shotguns when their faithful gundog has passed on as they cannot fathom going wingshooting without him/her. And, of course, a dog increases your chances of finding birds in the first place. However, I do not agree with your statement that wingshooting without a trained dog is unethical. By this yardstick, you label all wingshooters who shoot without dogs, or those whose dogs don't conform to your definition of "trained" as unethical wingshooters. You have labelled a lot of wingshooters as unethical. By extension, do you also label rifle hunters who hunt furred game without a dog as unethical? Is it also "highly unethical and cruel" to shoot and wound a buck, "then leave it suffering because you cannot find it"? There is no doubt that a trained tracking dog increases your chances of finding a wounded buck but not all farms and very few hunters have tracking dogs. Does that make those farms and those hunters unethical? I think not. Of course we should do what we need to do to avoid wounding as far as possible. And in the unfortunate situation where we have wounded a buck/bird, of course we should make every effort to find the animal and put it out of it's misery - whether we have a dog or not. I have owned English and German Shorthaired Pointers and, although they were good bird dogs they could not always find downed birds. I have hunted behind well trained top bloodline English and German Shorthaired Pointers and they did not always find downed birds. The presence of a good bird dog increases your likelihood of finding downed birds but does not guarantee it. We should all be concerned about ethics and the image we portray as hunters. But we should not label our fellow wingshooters as "unethical" based on the fact that they don't have trained dogs to shoot over - either by choice or circumstance.

^^Well done!

I will hunt my way.

Sounds like they are pushing an agenda to justify the existence of bird dogs.

I enjoy hunting over good dogs but even the best ones don’t find all the birds. I’ve found plenty of birds the dogs missed.

Dogs will miss just as many doves as most people....if they didn’t see if fall often times they can’t find it.

A good dog is a pleasure to hunt with but by no means a fail safe against losing birds

If I can’t wingshoot with a dog, then I won’t hunt. It’s just not the same.

Good post here and on the facebook page Dimitri

You need to hunt with a real retriever if you are finding just as many dove as they do. Why would you even make that statement? It’s ridiculous.

Ive dove hunted without a dog but it’s not nearly as enjoyable.

My GSP has not lost a dove in 2 or 3 yrs -------------- I must assume he is a lot better than the dogs THF members are using.

Had one that never in 6 yrs. hunting lost a bird. Then he learned to shoot a shotgun and would not get the birds. Had to get me a new pup and train it!!!!

Just do like me and miss most of the birds. That way, even if you lose 20% of the ones you hit it doesn't amount to very many.

I love pass shooting without dogs

I grew up shooting pheasant, quail, dove, ducks snd geese snd never had a dog
I lost very few birds. The secret is to not try for doubles and stick to one bird, msrk where it fell and go find it.

For what it is worth I have also hunted guinea fowl, sand grouse and francolin in Africa without a dog as well

I hunt upland birds and love it. I'd never hunt an upland bird without my brittanys. That's just me, don't care how anyone else does it.

Just my experience. I shoot a chit load of birds, upland I prefer dogs but doves, IME they miss birds. Enough to notice. Maybe all the dogs I’ve hunted over sucked bit having a dog is not a fail safe against losing birds