Legality of Hunters

Long gone are the days when all it took to be a hunter was a suicidal abandon, righteous zeal, and a pointed stick. A very real concern that monster hunters face in this day and age is the threat of the law.

This is the first post in a series on laws and the legality of hunting monsters. We will delve into different areas of the law and what legal hoops a hunter must jump through to protect humanity.

Each and every area has its own rules and regulations that govern a hunter's ability to pursue prey. For ease of Classification HA has divided these countries into categories:

Monster Protection:
Certain misguided individuals will sometimes try to protect monsters and their ilk from hunters with regulation of when and where they can be hunted. It also covers permits and legal documents that a hunter will need. This can appear multiple times as National, Regional, and Local laws sometimes disagree.

An excellent example of this would be Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Both cities reside within the state of California inside of the United States of America. The United States of America while a melting pot of humans does not recognize the rights of a majority of creatures beyond humans to exist. While most things are not denied by their laws there is a massive difference on the State level.

California has some of the most restrictive monster hunting laws within the USA. However many such as the Chupacabra (Genus Caprisangulgus) despite being less common than other species are considered vermin and are not protected while within San Francisco where it is rare to find them the Chupacabra is listed as a protected species while Los Angeles actually pays a bounty for their heads.

Equipment Laws:
Another integral part of hunting, if a hunter is only allowed to go out with a pointed stick and a pocket knife they will have considerably less luck than one armed with the latest technology. However high-explosives, automatic weapons, and other tools may not be carried in many areas. In some countries such as Britain the very act of carrying a simple knife is illegal.

This extends beyond just weaponry to other equipment as well. In most of Australia it is illegal to merely possess body armour. In parts of the United States it is illegal to hunt using night vision devices depending on the species being pursued.

Local Perception/Integration:
How accepting the populace in general to not just the existence of the paranormal, but to the hunting of them. Not necessarily the legality, but how well are the creatures integrated into the population. Is the town you are going to hunt in 90%+ monsters such as some werewolf dominated places in the Catskills? Is the town police and government inundated by Shape-shifters or Vampires?

These are important questions that every hunter has to know before they enter a territory. More than one well meaning savior has hunted a beast to its home and slain it only to be strung up by a lynch mob for killing an "innocent". For while not a true legal matter has great standing on a Hunter's safety.

Methods of Hunting:
While similar to both the Protection and Equipment categories, methods of hunting is different enough to require its own derivation. This category determines the techniques that may be used in purging creatures. An example would be areas that outlaw trap hunting.

Miscellaneous Rules & Regulations:
This category is for any extra legal notes that a hunter would need to know when hunting in an area.

We will continue updating this series so as to better educate those hunters and improve their safety and success.