Punt guns were also used by market hunters in the Delaware Bay. They were not conservationists.
The sale of game for human consumption distorted and warped the relationship between hunter and prey. It decimated animal and fish populations. At one time, for example, it was said you could walk across the Delaware Bay on the backs of sturgeon. When markets realized that their eggs were caviar like the eggs of Russian sturgeon? The Delaware Bay sturgeon population plummeted. Freight card loads of caviar were shipped from Bridgeton NJ to New York. Whether there is a viable sturgeon population in Delaware Bay these many decades later is very doubtful.
I am interested in all antique guns. I'd like a punt gun as a reminder of how careless and stupid we can be.