one thing that has been overlooked. the cars that stopped to watch and haze the hunters eliminated the escape route for the elk. they had 4 ways out, two wer blocked by hunters and then the last two were a bunch of cars and people or a fence.
ethical.....prolly not the most given how it evolved, but I bet had there not been all the traffic stopped it would have gone down much different.
something that you guys in better elk states also have to consider, washingtons elk season only lasts about 80 hours for our rifle season, and maybe 250 for archery. you must chose one or the other. desperation is a factor in washingtons harvest....it sux, but F&W makes it so.
the true bummer is the F&W agent who beat on the hunters and never asked the folks who were harrassing the hunters (per WAC) to move along. then instead of making a comment like, "no comment" or "we have to resort to these types of hunts to control the damage done by these elk, sinc we do not have funding to allow for winter range or fencing". instead he blackend the eye of all washington tag holders for the actions of a few, even though the actions were legal. as long as ethics are not written there will be argument.
I personally would not have done what they did. I would have called the state patrol and asked that the traffic be moved along or sited.
