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Man convicted for trying to help undercover game wardens recover deer with drone
- rolph 3y ago“The state of Ohio permits the use of drones in the recovery of downed game. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Game Commission appears to be taking a hostile view of the use of drones in game recovery,” Coleman wrote in a Jan. 2 memorandum seeking co-sponsors for his bill. “Pennsylvanians deserve better. With the advent of drones, hunters have an additional tool to use and reduce the amount of dead game that goes uncollected.” Coleman also told the Philadelphia Inquirer last month that he thinks using drones to recover deer is “common sense” and that the state shouldn’t overthink regulations around the technology.
- bsder 3y agoI'm a strong disagree on multiple fronts: 1) This will be used to let deer with small racks die This won't be used to collect wounded game--it will increase it. It will be used to verify the size of the rack. If the rack is too small, the deer will be left to die and a different one will be shot. 2) Quit being such a lousy shot. Get closer. Learn to use your gun better. Hit the deer in the correct spot so that you don't contaminate the meat, dumbass. Idiots won't chase down shitty shots anyway. And just so you know, I don't really care one iota about deer or deer poachers. I regard white tailed deer as four foot tall disease carrying vermin who should be exterminated to the last. However, if you're going to kill an animal, it's your duty to kill it and not let it suffer. 3) Drones are a nuisance Drones are loud as fuck and are going to scare the hell out of wildlife. Some of us like the woods because it's relatively quiet. The noise of a drone can carry a very long way in a place like PA.
- tastyfreeze 3y agoOn 1... No hunter I know would ever abandon a wounded animal to go find a bigger one.
- bsder 3y agoI would argue that most of the hunters I know are just like you say. However, some percentage are not. And they will be responsible for the majority of the problem. There is a reason why you can find cows in PA with "COW" painted in orange crylon (wish I were joking, but, sadly, I am not).
- mrguyorama 3y agoYou don't know many hunters then, or worse, you believe them when they tell you stories about hunting.
- samatman 3y agoIt's a big country. Big enough that the hunters you're thinking of and the ones he's talking about might not even be the same people! Farfetched but it's at least possible.
- wccrawford 3y agoWhat stops them from just abandoning small racks as it is? Just the inconvenience of having to find and kill another deer instead?
- justsomehnguy 3y agoYou need to spend the time to do it. With a drone which is fast and does,t get slowed down you can engagr the next one waay faster. It's the classic ruining the fun for the law abiding people.
- downut 3y agoInconvenience? Hunter here, trying to understand why that would be.
- floren 3y agoAnybody who shoots a deer without having a pretty good idea of the rack size before pulling the trigger is hunting badly. If you can't see the antlers, how do you even know it's a buck? I also don't see that much difference between your hypothetical hunter who sees a dying deer via a drone and decides to leave it, vs. seeing a dead deer in person and deciding to leave it. The woods are big (well, not so big in PA, but still pretty big) and realistically he'd be a colossal shithead but it'd be hard to catch him. "That deer? Nah, officer, I did shoot at a big 6-pointer, but I haven't been able to find it. That deer must be somebody else's, it is opening day after all" edit: I've only hunted in the western states, so practices may differ in the land of treestand-sitting.
- beart 3y ago> Anybody who shoots a deer without having a pretty good idea of the rack size before pulling the trigger is hunting badly. I don't think very many people would disagree with you on this point. However, I believe the point is that there are, in fact, many bad hunters, regardless of where they may be sitting. I'm reminded of this instance where a hunter shot a horse, upon which a 12 year old girl sat, mistaking it for a deer. Searching google for "hunter shoots horse" reveals approx 25 million results, for what it's worth. https://www.brainerddispatch.com/sports/89-year-old-hunter-gets-probation-and-fine-for-shooting-horse https://www.brainerddispatch.com/sports/89-year-old-hunter-g...
- downut 3y agoAll three points are true, except for the bit about "exterminated to the last". Ideally the size of the deer population would reside more or less within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem but the eradication of the apex predators (wolves mainly) has led to an explosion in the population. This has knock on effects that are very destructive to the point that deer in most places might accurately be called "vermin". Those who disagree might consult an authority such as Aldo Leopold on the subject. He knew this a long time ago. About the hunters: unfortunately there's a lot trash hunters out there now that don't follow norms and what formerly was considered socially aberrant behavior is considered cool, even righteous. Noisy drones in the forest/desert/canyons wherever truly suck for everyone not the drone operator. Who knew the choppers that flourished in the skies above the Grand Canyon would proliferate to fill every former natural refuge from the clamoring industrial noises of modern life.
- marssaxman 3y ago> 3) Drones are a nuisance How difficult would it be to hunt them?
- bluGill 3y agoNot hard at all, but you would use a different gun. You want a shotgun not a rifle. (some states only allow shotguns for deer hunting, but you load with a slug not a shot so not the same thing despite being the same gun)
- Vicinity9635 3y ago[dead]
- ben7799 3y agoWhite tail deer are definitely not scared of drone noise. Heck they are not scared of road noise, which is much much louder.
- xemoka 3y agoIt always shocks me how what appears as entrapment turns out legal.
- westmeal 3y agon̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶f̶e̶d̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ never help anyone ever because they may be a fed
- generalizations 3y agoHe didn't know he was interacting with feds.
- westmeal 3y agoI realized that now and I'm gonna remove the comment. edit: I guess I can't now so I'll just edit it
- chris_wot 3y agoNobody thinks worse of anyone who later acknowledges they made a mistake. Hell, I personally think more of them!
- sumtechguy 3y agoNeither did John DeLorean.
- elzbardico 3y agoAssume everyone is a government agent.
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- solardev 3y agoAmbiguous truncated headline: The drone isn't deer-shaped, it was just a regular drone used to find a deer. The original title was "Man Convicted of Wildlife Crimes for Trying to Help Undercover Game Wardens Recover a Deer with His Drone" The man was set up by two game wardens who called him for help locating a deer (edit: to clarify, to "recover" a previously-shot and injured/killed deer's body) with his drone, and subsequently charged with using electronic devices while hunting and disturbing wildlife, among other things.
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoSeems pretty entrapmenty.
- ceejayoz 3y agoNo; it's the same as a drug/prostitution sting.
- solardev 3y agoMaybe I'm missing some context here, but as an outsider, the whole thing seems like a ridiculous setup. "Help, we shot a deer and want to find it in the dark so we can put it out of its misery. Will you help us?" Which person of good conscience would say no to something like that? Who would even think that would be illegal, much less under four different state laws...?! Why are we spending tax dollars on something like this? What sort of harm are we trying to prevent by forcing deer to die slow, agonizing deaths in the dark?
- ceejayoz 3y ago"Help, I'm hungry. Will you rob that store?" Good, humane results don't make the acts legal.
- solardev 3y agoI'm not arguing that laws should be ignored as long as the outcome justifies it. I'm asking why this is illegal to begin with. This seems more like "Help, I'm hungry. Will you turn on the kitchen light so I can find the pasta I bought?"
- pavel_lishin 3y ago> Under the “recreational spotlighting” section of Title 34, the Pennsylvania Game and Wildlife Code explicitly prohibits the use of a spotlight “to search for or locate for any purpose any game or wildlife anywhere within this Commonwealth at any time during the antlered deer rifle season and during the antlerless deer rifle season.” It is not immediately clear if this applies to dead or wounded game, since Title 34 does not explicitly address the use of lights or flashlights for recovering game. Another section prohibits hunters from using artificial lights of any kind while carrying a firearm or other weapon, but there is no mention anywhere in the game code of prohibitions against recovering or tracking downed game at night. I know nothing about hunting, or the laws surrounding it, but why would it be illegal to recover a dead animal at night using a spotlight?
- empathy_m 3y agoIt sounds like there's a distinction between looking for a corpse with a flashlight and looking for new things to kill with the flashlight, and that the latter is sometimes prohibited (some discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlighting ). Also seems like it would be tough to do the former without accidentally doing the latter.
- bell-cot 3y agoReaction: "That's your story, eh? Okay - if you can describe and find that corpse, then I won't arrest you."
- krisoft 3y ago> Also seems like it would be tough to do the former without accidentally doing the latter. Like put away your gun? I have walked in forests with a flashlight without killing anything many many times. The trick is to not bring a gun to the experience.
- peterleiser 3y agoThe defense attorney said: “Both the arresting officer and the undercover officer — both a game warden for over 30 years each — testified that it is illegal to recover downed game at night without a weapon”
- newsclues 3y agoThe trend of legal rulings that bring the judicial system into disrepute is accelerating and this ought to terrify everyone.
- solardev 3y agoFreedom for me but not for thee! The US is a country where bribing politicians and enslaving prisoners is legal, but it's criminal to not want a baby or use lights to look for deer.
- paleotrope 3y agoWickard v. Filburn Dred Scott v. Sandford Long history here of bad judicial decisions
- alistairSH 3y agoUse of drones and use of spotlights to hunt are both illegal. Not sure how this ruling brings the courts into disrepute. Should the laws on drones be updated? Possibly. But the spotlighting law exists for good reason. And the defendant was knowingly providing an illegal service (they didn't call him randomly - he advertised this service on Instagram).
- kristjansson 3y ago> advertised and on the front page of his website: https://www.wingyds.com https://www.wingyds.com
- xeromal 3y agoUsing drones to hunt is illegal but his advertisement is to recover already shot game. I think that's worth the distinction
- mindslight 3y agoWhat leads you to say it's accelerating? The "war on drugs" was launched decades ago. Police have been unaccountable basically forever. For each right listed in the Bill of Rights, there have been egregious violations of it that have been blessed by the courts. If anything this seems like a relatively straightforward application of bad law. The court has actually avoided increasing their scope with more lofty ideals like equity (often referred to as "legislating from the bench").
- IronWolve 3y agoIt was also entrapment. It wasn't hunting with a drone. It was just flying a drone looking for the dead deer. This is another example of state trying to outlaw something by chipping away at it. Making normal things illegal. Drones are legal. Looking for your kill is legal. Looking for your kill with a drone is a crime!
- solardev 3y agoThe ultimate crime of "doing legal things together, illegally"
- ceejayoz 3y agoI don't think this qualifies as entrapment. The agents were "pretending to be a hunter"; entrapment requires the crime be one "that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit". It would've been entrapment if they'd openly said they were game wardens who needed assistance - the defense would be that they wouldn't normally help someone outside the context of a law enforcement request - but because this person would've helped a non-warden hunter in the same way, it's not entrapment. Same deal as drug/prostitution sting operations.
- jandrese 3y agoI think this is something the courts will have to decide. This guy has the possibility of setting some precedent here.
- Joker_vD 3y agoSo, "by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent" means that if they do something that they would have done because of the trickery, persuasion or fraud of someone who is not the officer or state agent, it's not entrapment. For instance, if an undercover cop threatens you to commit some crime at the gun point, it's not an entrapment since if he was not a cop, you'd probably do it anyhow. Is that how we read this? Really?
- 3y ago
- bsamuels 3y agoI love these threads because nobody in them ever knows what entrapment is
- SpaceManNabs 3y agoyes because the legal definition is intentionally narrow and nearly toothless. not the fault of anyone but legislators and lawyers.
- mrguyorama 3y agoNo, the legal definition has a purpose. If the only thing stopping you from doing a crime is easy access, and a cop provides you that access, and you commit the crime, you were in the wrong. If you don't want to go to jail or be fined, don't commit the crime, no matter how convenient or easy it seems to be.
- SpaceManNabs 3y agoI am not denying the existence of the legal definition. I am saying that the contrast with the public expectation is because the legal definition is a sort of regulatory capture. You are debating with an irrelevant point that only you brought up. > If you don't want to go to jail or be fined, don't commit the crime, no matter how convenient or easy it seems to be. This in particular > If the only thing stopping you from doing a crime is easy access, and a cop provides you that access, and you commit the crime, you were in the wrong. If you don't see how this is different from the example above, then I can see you are bringing up irrelevant points.
- bell-cot 3y agoMy general reaction to such stories is "If law enforcement had time for this, then they're either over-staffed, or short on managers with some sense. Or maybe both."
- Eji1700 3y agoYeah. I get why people want to trot out entrapment, even when it's not, but it does certainly reek of a waste of time. That said, they're game wardens. It's not like they could've been off solving murders or arresting domestic abusers or whatever. It might just be this is become a major problem in their area and this is a pretty good way to make sure everyone knows it's not ok.
- alistairSH 3y agoThese were game wardens. It's quite literally their job to enforce the laws regarding hunting/game/etc.
- bell-cot 3y agoGame wardens should be neither mindless enforcement bots, nor "we'll show you who's boss, punk!" machos. If (per the the article) both Pennsylvania and other states are busy moving toward de-criminalization - well, gosh, it sure sounds like top-level government policy makers believe the "crime" is neither bad, nor worth using state resources to discourage. Maybe the game wardens could take a hint from their way-up-at-the-top bosses? Or - > “The Legislature needs to address this,” Magisterial District Court Judge Raymond Sheller said while delivering his verdict, according to the Associated Press. “Everyone is playing catchup to science.” - which seems to loudly hint that, from the PoV of current best practices for wildlife management, the "crime" is reasonable/acceptable/responsible behavior. Game wardens are supposed to know and care a bit about that kinda stuff, aren't they?
- alistairSH 3y agoGame wardens are law enforcement officers. They should be enforcing the law as written. Anything else undermines the rule of law and leads to selective enforcement. If the government truly wants to make spotlighting with a drone legal, the correct place for intervention is at the DA level. They could have chosen not to prosecute. And regardless of the drone, spotlighting is still illegal and for good reason. It would never make sense to allow spotlighting from a drone but not from ground - that defeats the purpose of banning spotlighting. If the state does make spotlighting legal, that's fine I guess (I disagree, but don't live in PA).
- mjhay 3y agoGood to know that the PA game commission has their priorities straight. PA has a tremendous deer overpopulation problem. You'd think they wouldn't want to discourage hunting with all sorts of ambiguous legal gotchas.
- xadhominemx 3y agoWhat's ambiguous about this law?
- thsksbd 3y agoWhether this was entrapment.
- xadhominemx 3y agoI think that is an ambiguity belonging to enforcement rather than the law, no?
- unclenoriega 3y agoThat is the least ambiguous part of this. The defendant runs a business offering drone deer recovery.
- thsksbd 3y agoThey've become vermin in suburban PA. I once counted a dozen of deer on my 1/4 acre property just grazing. During dead-deer season (early spring and late fall) I can easily count a half dozen dead deer on my morning drop off routine (about 14 mi round trip). I want to slowly convert my lawn to produce vegetables and fruit, but what's the point? The deer will eat the whole plant unless its very toxic to them. They have no fear of man, like wild deer would. On account of their unnaturally high density [1] they carry nasty diseases for us, other animals and themselves. Heck, Ive seen dead deer on the part of the interstate that cuts through the city. [1] suburban deer have no predators (except cars), unnaturally vast lawns to graze on and idiots feeding them (why??)
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- abfan1127 3y agothis sounds like a great opportunity for jury nullification to fix a wrong.
- ct0 3y agoWhat is the difference between a drone and a electronic trail cam?
- kristjansson 3y agoDrone has lights and makes noise, trail cam is disguised, silent, and probably IR (or at least a single flash, not a spotlight)?
- peterleiser 3y agoWhich allows the drone to flush out the deer. Kind of like using hunting dogs, which is not legal everywhere.
- peterleiser 3y agoI would look at the law regarding use of trail cams, but I'm guessing it has to do with trail cams being in a fixed position while drones are mobile.
- wepple 3y agoThis is a big part of it Same reason many areas (eg Alaska) allow you to fly into a hunting area, but not hunt the day you land. Otherwise you could use the plane for locating and/or driving animals fairly precisely
- karaterobot 3y agoThey talked about how they caught the guy spotlighting a live deer at night. I can see it from both sides. On the one hand, you want to allow hunters to recover animals they've killed, otherwise it's all a waste. On the other hand, some people will use drones for poaching, or to get an unfair advantage. There are artificial restrictions built into hunting, that is not new. The question is how to write regulations to get the good effects and not the bad effects, which is incredibly difficult. I agree that it seems unfair to charge this guy when he was not trying to poach, he was just trying to help recover the animal, and using a flashlight on the drone to do it. That's really not the guy you should make an example of.
- bee_rider 3y agoI think there’s a missing element on the pro side—putting aside whether or not it is a waste for the hunter, it is wildly unethical to injure an animal and then leave wandering around slowly dying. If we’re going to have hunting, we should be extremely reluctant to limit the ability to find the injured animals.
- godelski 3y agoThis is the bigger aspect to me. "All for nothing" is not the right description for failure to recover. Hunting is actually an important part of maintaining a proper ecosystem. It still serves as a management tool even if the animal dies in needless pain. Counterintuitively, hunting can often be an ethically right decision to make (depending on animal). This is because we humans have displaced natural predators and these prey will tend to over populate, over consume their food sources, and then starve. Remember that hunting is limited to seasons and that these seasons are decided per species and the population of that species. There are a lot of regulations around this and it isn't simply kill anything you want. Similarly there are even moral big game hunting, where they specifically target aggressive and harmful animals, and use the money to fund the nature preserve. In this manner, the ethical obligation is then to do the least harm and make the most out of it. If we need to cull some populations, it should be done as humanely as possible. Applying the same ethical ideals (distinct from practice) that we apply for livestock. Some articles if anyone wants to read more. This is a controversial topic still but I'm providing this information because there is legitimacy to this side of the argument that many may not be aware of. I'd encourage discussion, but not bashing. Unfortunately, like most things, there's a lot of complexity and nuance to all these things. The claim is not that there is no abuse, but that there is a difference between abusing a practice and a practice being useful. https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/deerhuntastool.aspx https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/deerhuntas... https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-... https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/539071-misinformation-about-trophy-hunting-is-wrong-dead-wrong/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/539071-misinfor... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7YFjisSTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y7YFjisSTg
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- cptskippy 3y agoEveryone is saying it's entrapment but y'all need to read the article: * The agency's position is that recovery is part of the activity of hunting. * The state law prohibits the use of spotlights for hunting during either of the hunting seasons. * The drone operator was cited when he used a light on the drone to highlight a live deer. * There's no indication as to what type of light was on the drone. * The article doesn't provide the definition of a spotlight is under the law. * The article states that the law allows recovery of game at night. * There's currently legislation to legalize and define legal use of drones for hunting. * Law enforcement is being accused of inconsistent enforcement of the law. I guess my question is, how do you recovery a deer at night without a light? Is there a definition of spotlight and differentiates it from any other light that might be used to recover a light?
- _xerces_ 3y agoUse an infrared spotlight and sensor?
- chankstein38 3y agoI was confused about that too. Let me just wander around the woods at night with no light, I'm sure that'll go well.
- watwut 3y agoIt tends to not be a pitch dark in the forrest, you can see huge objects like a deer and roughly navigate in general.
- dan-0 3y agoI mean, yeah, but have you ever tried to follow a blood trail through thick brush in the dark? I'm not fully disagreeing, but there's a distinction to be made. I can find my blind, my car, and maybe a carcass on a pristine forest floor on some pretty dark nights, but if that thing jumped into some greenbrier or other brush, good luck. It's hard enough seeing them in that stuff during the day, I've had multiple occasions where I walked by a thicket in the day only to see deer flush out after I'm past it. Also, some people just can't see in the dark well, regardless of how well they see in the day.
- _xerces_ 3y agoNot mentioned are FAA rules on night flights, flight out of line-of-sight, flying drones commercially (licensing required) etc. So this could end up being federally illegal no matter what PA decides.
- blackfawn 3y agoThe linked page to their company site specifically states "We are FAA Part 107 Certified and Fully Insured." As the article does not state anything related to violating FAA rules, it'd be safe to assume (until proven otherwise) that this commercially licensed company was following FAA rules. This seems to be specific to PA game laws and at least at a glance, seems like it might be entrapment by the game wardens.
- mrguyorama 3y ago>seems like it might be entrapment by the game wardens. This is nonsense. Entrapment requires that the accused would NOT have done the crime, even with easy access to means, without the actions of the police. This man runs and advertises a business to do exactly this crime. This cannot possibly entrapment. Entrapment is when a cop says "if you don't cook this meth, I will kill your wife" so you cook meth. Entrapment is NOT "here's all this equipment and supplies to make some meth, and I will buy it from you at 2X market rate, and I know you need the money since your wife is dying from cancer and you can't afford treatment". If you cook the meth in that scenario, you were not entrapped. The philosophy is that you should not commit a crime no matter how convenient or beneficial to you it gets. Entrapment is not a "cops set me up" get out of jail free card.
- ben7799 3y agoSo many of these small businesses are certified but break the law like crazy. Part 107 means you can apply for waivers with the FAA for specific activities. They almost never do for routine stuff because it would be a huge extra cost for them. My town is in a no-fly zone. Almost every house for sale still gets a drone video overfly. I highly doubt the guy doing them is applying for waivers and getting them approved. It is too trivial of a justification to get an approval. You can actually look up the waivers on the FAA website, there are orders of magnitude too few of them to explain all the flights that appear illegal.
- balderdash 3y agoThis just a seems like a poor use of resources… why go after someone for doing something that is in a grey area of the law, and at least morally doesn’t seem like a bad thing to do. I mean if they busted him for helping them poach game, great. But seems like there would be more productive uses of their time - or hey maybe they just wanted to boost their “stats”
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- dwighttk 3y agoThis kind of sting operation should be illegal… go catch a real criminal
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- FpUser 3y ago>"in which an officer called Wingenroth pretending to be a hunter who had wounded a deer and needed help recovering it." Dirty sleazebag. It is good to know what kind of moral character government cultivates. Not that I would expect anything honorable coming from that direction.
- trhr 3y agoIf you can't recover wounded game, you shouldn't be hunting. The first rule is you don't chase it. Just sit still for an hour or two. The deer will bed down in nearby trees and bleed out.
- djmips 3y agoNot all wounded game is going to bleed out.
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- u32480932048 3y ago> In his written statement, Siddons argues that by citing Wingenroth on Dec. 6, the agency was enforcing its laws inconsistently and “further confounding the situation.” He says that during the trial, neither game warden could recall ever citing a hunter for trying to recover downed game at night — nor could they point to a single section of the state’s game code that supported their position. This has got to be the dumbest case for entrapment that I've ever seen. The taxpayers should have recourse against agencies that do things like this, particularly given the PA Game Commission's history of dimwitted fuckery.
- japhyr 3y agoAs a long-time search and rescue volunteer, this passage sounds really problematic: > Another section prohibits hunters from using artificial lights of any kind while carrying a firearm or other weapon I absolutely understand why we don't want people using lights to attract animals while hunting. But failing to carry a headlamp or other light source when you might be out in the woods after dark would easily lead to more people needing assistance.
- coldbrewed 3y agoLaws like this stem from an attempt to ban the use of flood lights to stun deer and thus make a shot easier. Like much firearms legislation it's still intentioned but leads to absurd scenarios.
- eastbound 3y agoOr simple lights that disrupts sleep in the forest.
- rickydroll 3y agoUsing red light would give hunters the ability to see where they are going and limit the impact on nighttime wildlife. https://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/blog/why-wildlife-friendly-lighting-in-necessary-to-the-safety-of-nature https://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/blog/why-wildlife-friend...
- crazygringo 3y agoThis whole thing is so weird. What I'm most curious about is, why did the Pennsylvania Game Commission set up this sting operation in the first place? And why did they choose to target this man in particular? Is people recovering deer with drone flashlights some huge problem that they're trying to publicly crack down on? Because it doesn't sound like it from the article -- it sounds like this is an ambiguous section of the law where what he was doing was helpful rather than harmful. Or did the commission have other problems with the guy but they couldn't do anything about it, so they targeted him specifically, and this sting operation was the best they could come up with? None of it seems to add up, from what's in the article.
- nijave 3y agoI kind of get the vibe there's some small town politics and someone complained to the game warden about this guy so they set out to catch him doing something illegal.
- rcurry 3y agoMe too. I’ve lived in a small town and know how that works. I accidentally shot a deer one time when I was out hunting coyotes but the warden knew me and so I got “taking game out of season” instead of “poaching” - I actually didn’t know there was a difference, but I guess there is. If you call it in and report yourself you get some courtesy. I did make the local paper, so it was kind funny when all my friends started calling me about why I was listed in the police blotter section of the local gazette. Good times.
- rcurry 3y agoI have to agree with you. This whole thing is bananas - it’s not like you have some good ol’ boys jacklighting deer and shooting them. It just sounds like some guy who was excited to have a little drone business and was happy to help some folks out with his toy. As a sheriff friend of mine would put it, busting a guy like that really isn’t in the “spirit of the law.” Maybe there was some bad blood or something between this guy and the wardens. Don’t get me wrong - wardens can be pretty strict and I’ve known a few who have actually ticketed themselves for making a mistake, but this wasn’t a warden just coming up on a scene and issuing a citation, and saying “sorry boys, I wish I didn’t have to write you up but here we are…” this was a calculated setup and seems like a pretty cheap shot.
- syspec 3y agoIs deer recovery here used literally? Like to recover a deer that was lost? Or is that some kind of code word for hunting them? Isn't recovering something good?
- hiddencost 3y agoRecovery of a dead deer that they couldn't find. They were allowed to shoot and kill the deer. They were not allowed to find the corpse of the legally killed deer using a drone. Deer run after you shoot them. On many states people use bloodhounds to recover the harvest.
- alphazard 3y agoCan someone into hunting explain why any of these laws are necessary? From an outsider's perspective, hunting is important to keep animals afraid of humans, and off of roads. I don't really care how it's done. There's a target amount of deer that we want, and there's the amount of people who want to hunt deer. Figure out a price per deer that keeps the population close to the target. That's the simplest solution that provides me (the outsider) the benefit I expect. But the laws are far more complicated than that, so there must be some sort of rent-seeking, or honor culture, or some sort of historical baggage that I'm missing.
- SheepSlapper 3y agoMost hunters want the animal to have a "sporting chance", otherwise there's not a lot of pride or accomplishment for taking an animal. If you removed every law around hunting, you'd just drive around with a spotlight until you found a deer, and shoot it from the road. That's not sporting, it's what many poachers do. Actually being successful in a hunt is HARD, and that's what makes it feel so good if/when you succeed. And also, the laws mean that harvest numbers will be lower. It lets the state sell MORE licenses and tags than the number of deer they want to be actually taken, so they make more money. It's the same reason gyms want your membership, but don't want you working out :) States are different though, some places have real population problems and will give ya a fistful of tags for cheap. My state isn't that way, they want the revenue and our game population would never support 100% success rates.
- alphazard 3y ago> And also, the laws mean that harvest numbers will be lower. It lets the state sell MORE licenses and tags than the number of deer they want to be actually taken, so they make more money. Ahh, this is the kind of answer I was hoping for. Thank you.
- dan-0 3y agoIt's not wrong, but it's also a bit more nuanced if you're unfamiliar. Many state wildlife departments use this money to put it back into public parks and protecting more at risk wildlife. There are some species that continue to live purely because of these structures.
- lukeinator42 3y agoI am a hunter in Canada, and in the province I'm in it's also illegal to hunt within 48 hours of flying in a plane in the same hunting zone. Sporting ethics is something important to consider; retrieving an animal is part of the hunting process and the lines between hunting and tracking a shot animal can blur (e.g. if someone were to spot another animal while attempting to retrieve their game or are hunting in a group where someone else has a tag). I'm definitely pro-technology in general, but I think analogies from other sports such as rock climbing are useful, where nowadays the ideal is to lean towards cams, nuts, and other temporary removable gear that you bring with you instead of over-bolting areas or hammering in pitons everywhere. Or like how swimming restricts certain types of swimsuits that are deemed too efficient. Just because a given technology is more efficient doesn't necessarily mean it will make the sport of hunting better. I think this sting was valid and until the laws change, drone operators should be held to the same standard as other pilots when it comes to hunting regulations.
- frognumber 3y agoIt's not always a sport. It can be a sport if you do it for sport, but plenty of people hunt to: - Have healthy food to eat - Keep predators away from farms - Control population booms of some species which would otherwise starve to death ... and so on. Sports have rules to make them fair. Jobs and hobbies are about making them efficient, fun, and ethical. There is context in this thread which suggests why this specific sting made sense, but if you're not in a competition setting, if there is a way to make hunting more humane and efficient, we should take it every time. Sport regulations make sense for teams, not as laws everyone follows. If I'm playing soccer in a field, I can follow official rules, or I can play Calvinball. Laws, here, should be set for things like gun safety and sanitation, not to enforce some sort of sporting regulations.
- lukeinator42 3y agoIt's true that hunting is a great way to have healthy food to eat, and is important for population control, but ethics in hunting goes way beyond just being a sporting regulation. Lots of people in hunting use phrases such as sportsmanship and the concept of fair chase has traditionally been built into the culture of hunting. I think laws such as daylight-hunting hours, hunting seasons, limits on atv use, etc. are enforcing these ethics rather than merely being about safety, and that's important for conservation and how we relate to nature as a culture. All that to say I agree with making hunting more humane, but not necessarily more efficient.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago[dead]