I will clarify. Georgia has a law that requires you to make a "reasonable effort to retrieve" a game animal. The problem for enforcement is that there is no definition of "reasonable" "effort" or "animal".
If you wound a deer, there is no definition of what is "reasonable" or what is "effort".
Many if not most states require you to retrieve all usable parts of an animal. Georgia does not. In Georgia, it is perfectly legal to cut the antlers off a buck and leave the rest in the woods, or pull the backstraps out of a doe and leave the rest there.
Anyone who has ever been on a dove shoot has seen hunters who will not bust the briars or weeds looking for downed doves.
Same for shooting woodies in a beaver swamp.
I am advised that the same situation exists in NC and TN - maybe other southern states.
Coons are very edible, and it is my impression that all those killed while hunting, either as a targeted species, or target of opportunity, are not retrieved.
