“They've got apparently some crazy law in Southeast [Alaska] that says if you even touch an animal with an arrow, it becomes your animal,” Ross told the paper. “He looked to see if he had hit it and didn't believe that he'd hit it fatally.”
Well - hard for me to say, as I wasn't there, nor have I seen any video on this... If he was filming, one would think there would be some good video evidence that the shot was not fatal (or even crippling). But with the Alaskan law being what it apparently is - an arrow (or bullet, I would assume) is well off the mark and you clip hair - you have "filled your tag". Something is a bit strange (or messed up) here.
Yes. It's a stupid, unethical law, deliberately constructed to maximize the ability of the authorities to exercise arbitrary discretion to prosecute and levy fines.