It's not even that. From the info in the OL article, it sounds like complete horse shit. Aside from allegations or suspicions, the only thing concrete is he must have failed to get a written and signed letter from his sister allowing him to hunt on her land BEFORE he shot the deer.  Getting the letter after is apparently forbidden.

Gone are the days when family and neighbors can say "sure, you can hunt my land". Nope. Not any more. I'm shocked they don't demand that the letter br notarized and renewed every year at least 2 weeks prior to start of the season.

Unless they can prove something, it's just more bullshit from petty government assholes.

Every time I meet someone with that beard and sunken eyes like that, your stereotype is accurate.  I don't know why but it be like it do

I am skeptical of anything that is an emergency that "necessitates" government intervention. The fact is that we have almost no idea what the whitetail population was throughout history, and it's no coincidence that deer populations are now at pre-colonization levels as we can "accurately" determine their population count. Somehow, as habitat destruction increased dramatically - and the human population increased dramatically - so did the deer population. I think this is obviously counterintuitive. Go read the mountains of (very different) assumptions and estimates made throughout history, especially those that constituted a grave emergency and led to the establishment of fish cops everywhere. The U.S. population was about 1/6 of what it is now in 1885, supposedly around when deer were hunted "almost to extinction."

Considering the government is now deliberately very wrong about damn near everything, especially as it relates to them getting more money and power, I am extremely skeptical that a sparsely populated substantial portion of the country (otherwise unincorporated flyover country) could have any real accurate estimate of deer populations, let alone a reasonable expectation that a few thousand people could wipe out the entire population. It's not known, and it's not knowable.

That goes to the point of the people that "follow the rules" because they think deer would be extinct otherwise, instead of looking at what the deer population has done in response to vehicles, hunting, widespread habitat destruction, and so on. It's grown.

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People don’t think market hunting be like it is, but it do.

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OL article at bottom of first post doesn't have that info. The Yahoo article provides more info. Still, I've learned that much of what is charged in cases like this is bullshit charge loading. So, his cell phone data showed that at some point, he was 10 miles from sisters land. Who freaking cares?  Unless they can prove that's where he shot the deer, they can fuck off.

Poachers are assholes. I still don't see evidence that's what he did.

It's just hunting on someone else's land. A legal activity in hunting done while trespassing.

Did you miss the part about him jacklighting deer or stealing peoples data cards?

How is that addressing anything?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344865578_SEARCHING_THE_INTERNET_TO_ESTIMATE_DEER_POPULATION_TRENDS_IN_THE_US_CALIFORNIA_AND_CONNECTICUT#pf8

Read the paper. It's substantially guesswork. Do you believe we can accurately estimate the deer population in fucking 1450? Do you believe we can accurately estimate the deer population west of the Mississippi dating back to the 1800s, when the population was mostly settlers in unincorporated lands?

Fact is it was a single guy, a naturalist who just so happened to be an avid animal rights activist, at least at the time, who completely guessed at the population numbers. We are assuming that one guy in 1909 guessing on numbers going back to pre-Columbian times in America is sufficient reason to establish nationwide and statewide government agencies.

Of course deer were hunted more. I understand that a lot has changed over the years. The premise is just nonexistent otherwise, which is the problem.

Land owner new about this deer.  Probably watched it grow for years. I bet he's still pissed.

How do you feel about property rights?

O-HI-O

Of course we don’t know exactly what big game populations were prior to western contact in North America, and those populations likely varied wildly at times due to predation and climate changes.

What we do know is that we did almost hunt most big game and fowl species to extinction thanks to market hunting and lack of appropriate management. Just because we don’t know what the population was at the start of human contact doesn’t change the fact these populations were at the brink due to unregulated hunting.

We can thank science based management and enforcement for the fact we have more big game and more hunting opportunities than at any time in American history, despite the fact these species were near the brink roughly 100-120 years ago.

Claiming otherwise is akin to claiming the earth is flat, it takes that level of ignorance to deny it.

No, we don't know that. That's exactly the point. These are guesses, sometimes extrapolated from other species, sometimes entirely estimated. You're just assuming that what I'm saying is in question because there's little or no data to support it is automatically true.

Call me whatever you like. You can't point to anything even remotely resembling accurate data regarding population counts of whitetail deer. Educate yourself before you run your mouth calling names.

The estimates of whitetail population are less scientific than the statistical models of the planet's temperature, viral burdens, and so on.

This.  Don't know full deets, but deer hunters I've been around are as catty and childish ad Jr high girls.

True, but there are so many now that my state really needs to open up tags.  Can't go 7 miles without seeing a new deer carcass about everyday.

Dude, the White tailed deer was considered extirpated from Ohio in 1909 and then reintroduced in 1922. 200 deer were reintroduced between 1922 and 1930. There wasn’t a hunting season for deer in the state until 1947 and only 8500 permits were sold, only 168 hunters were successful.

Last year 213,928 people harvested a deer in the state.

You can repeat this same story for virtually every state in the nation, all easily verified, factual information. This isn’t some conspiracy amongst the “fish cops” to keep “big government” control over wildlife. It’s just what happened.

Saying it didn’t is one of the most retarded things I’ve read on this site.

Of course wildlife populations are “estimates.” They are wild animals, so of course we don’t know exact numbers. But in the early 1900s when no one was seeing any deer, we knew we had a problem. Shit my dad remembers it being a huge deal to see a deer in the early 1960s. We have people alive who remember how bad it was.

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My kind of guy.

I know what it was "considered" to be when the human population of the entire state was roughly the population of a few counties in northern Virginia. They declared the turkey extinct too. They blamed habitat destruction, which has been proven to have pretty much zero negative correlation with whitetail populations, at least by empirical observation. But you're again missing the point. What happened in Ohio might have more sound basis in fact than the rest of the country. The statement wasn't "deer were extinct in Ohio," even though they weren't, it was more broadly that deer were near extinction all across the continent. And the underlying assumption is that what happened in Ohio must be happening everywhere else even though we know that it doesn't work that way, not for animals, not for plants.

Worth noting that not only were records incredibly inadequate at that time, they vary wildly. It's hard to find significant records for a lot of human people from around that time, let alone accurate numbers of deer harvest. You're telling me that deer were extinct in Ohio in 1909, and there was no hunting until 1947, and even then only 200 were taken. Yet in Pennsylvania, there were two years (1938 and 1940) where over 150,000 deer were harvested. How is that possible? Why did Indiana supposedly see a similar decline? Why did Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and so on - not?

I'm arguing against the supposed point that deer were "nationally" threatened simply because they may have been locally threatened. Again, that's not how any of this works, and it never has. But the precise claim being made is that nationwide government agencies were necessary because of things that provably did not happen in that state and may not have happened elsewhere.

God, the stupid.  My grandfather  was so excited to shoot a deer in the late 40's that it made the local paper and people came from all over town to see it. A scrawny little four point.


Passenger pigeon ring a bell?  What the hell do you think created the need for such organizations as Ducks Unlimited, Geese Unlimited, Bass Unlimited and fishing organizations such as GCCA?   In my own youth commercial fishing for redfish was so damaging it practically made them extinct on the Texas coast. The state had to build hatcheries and fund stocking programs in order to bring them back after outlawing the commercial harvest.

Tarpon and snook just now are coming back.  They were wiped out back in the 30's, mainly netted for fertilizer. Striped bass unfortunately will never return due to spawning habitat destruction.  The Texas coast used to have a massive sea turtle population.  Guess what happened to it by WWII?   Pretty much every damn sea turtle you see off the Texas coast these days was hatched from an egg in a conservation program then released on local beaches to re-establish a breeding population.  



Pronghorn?  Used to be a very healthy Texas population.  I last saw one in high school back in the 70's up in the panhandle.  Same with Bighorn sheep.  Bear?  Used to have those too. Turkey just came back in huntable numbers in my lifetime.

Do you even hunt? Do you have any idea what the you are talking about beyond what you read on some anarcho/libertarian blog?

Of course conservation and species recovery is largely local. It still is.

Elk were once native to Ohio. There are 0 wild elk in Ohio. Are elk threatened or endangered in 2024? No. They are doing fine and recovering in every state where they are currently being managed.

By and large wildlife management happens at a state level in this country, outside of migratory birds or ESA protected species. Even then, most of the on the ground work is done at the state agency level. The fact you are rambling about “nationwide government agencies” when we are talking about whitetails proves you are talking out of your ass.

The wild turkey recovery is probably the best example of wildlife agencies working with private conservation groups to recover a species. It was truly remarkable, and it happened in our lifetime.

You are basically taking something that has been studied and documented ad nauseam and claiming “it was all a bullshit conspiracy.”

Fair enough.  Hunting can be full of jealous twats too.  Can we agree that Camo Karens and trespassers can kiss an ass?

Nationwide means a roughly identical agency in every state. No, it's not a federal agency. That's why I used the word nationwide and not the word federal.

I have hunted for 30 years and fished for almost 40. I have worked with stocking and conservation organizations in two states. This is from me, not from any "anarcho-libertarian" website. Nobody really cares much about this.

I did not say anything about any species other than the whitetail deer. For example, I know elk are not as widespread as they used to be. But somehow elk, a very, very similar animal to a whitetail deer, have, through extensive conservation management, been reestablished in some states. In PA, this means they've gone from a population of zero a hundred years ago to 1400 now. But the whitetail deer in Ohio have gone from zero (supposedly) to about 750,000 over that time period. Why are there 50 times as many deer? Instead of automatically assuming the premise is true, it would make more sense to question whether the numbers were accurate in the first place.

But go ahead, continue to put words in my mouth. You're essentially arguing that government intervention is necessary everywhere in every state because of what happened in one state even if that very specifically didn't happen in another state. I'm saying that because conservation efforts are necessary or successful in some cases doesn't mean they are automatically necessary in all cases.

That's probably how this all started.  

A deer that big if familiar to all those in the area that it roams. Locals may have been feeding it.  

Your argument from the beginning hasn’t been cohesive. I’m not even sure what it is other than calling science based management junk because we don’t know exactly what things looked like 300 years ago.

My argument is simple… Wildlife rules exist for a reason, and state agencies exist to study what rules if any are necessary, and to enforce said rules. Licenses and tags exist to fund that agency, and resulting research and enforcement.

There are areas and species in this country where literally a handful of tags are given out because that’s all the hunting that population can handle.

There are other areas of this country where deer bag limits are set by the day, and there are no tagging requirements period.

We pay these agencies to figure that out.

The system works, and the proof is in the data we do have.

Shit, even in my lifetime there are far more “big” deer than there ever were when I was a kid.

I’m not sure why you are intent on arguing against a system and part of government that actually did its job and worked as intended for once. Is paying $40-50 a year and following some fairly simple rules that much of a burden for quality hunting?

Hunting without a license or deer tag is one of the charges and that is considered poaching in most places. Also, traditionally hunting on land without permission is the original definition of poaching.

I don't put anyone on ignore. But I do make mental notes of people who are so ridiculous there is no point in posting a counter argument.

In order to get in that category, a person must eliminate all doubt that they belong there.

This is especially clear when other more knowledgeable and reasoned men have already demolished the statements made.

Ah yes, the hand-waving argument. Great. Intellectually sound.

Still waiting for anybody to refute any of the points I made or any of my data.

I'm not the one who believes deer strictly adhere to unmarked state borders.

Who said that? And you are claiming I’m the one putting words in peoples mouth.

Here is a fancy chart from the research article you linked.

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Which more or less proves my point, that deer were nearly extirpated due to unregulated hunting and recovered thanks to proper management.

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Here is the conclusion, which mode or less says deer population estimates are an in-exact science, which nobody is refuting.

What I think you are arguing is that because it’s an inexact science management and wildlife agencies aren’t necessary. But it’s so convoluted I don’t even know.


Here is an excerpt from the first paragraph…

“Information for decision making may be publicly available, but costly to obtain. As an experiment in environmental scanning, the internet was searched on a daily basis over several years to collect information and provide analysis related to decisions on deer management. The process discovered that, contrary to common assumptions, the U.S. deer population has apparently been falling since about the year 2000 based on analysis of available state data that had not been aggregated. In some cases, state population estimates were created using standard procedures on available data. Results indicate that differences in survey methods appear to be relatively constant over time as does the ratio of hunting data to official state population estimates. While reliability intervals for population estimates are wide, population trend reliability is relatively high.”

Yup definitely sounds like all these wildlife agencies are bullshit and need defunded! Your data makes a great argument for your case…

Cell phones and body cams.   Criminals and cops don't think they be like they are, but they do.

My argument is and has been that every government agency that exists because of an "emergency" should be scrutinized extensively. Here we are in 2024, and I would imagine plenty of people are still saying that "is the Patriot Act, TSA, etc. that much of a burden for safe travel?"

I don't disagree that sound management practices are necessary or good. I am saying that not everything they do makes sense or is predicated on sound management practices. Here in Virginia, for example, there was a huge panic twenty years ago because of the establishment of a snakehead population. We were warned that they were going to wipe out native species and destroy our waterways. That hasn't happened. At all. Snakeheads have integrated pretty well. But of course plenty of invasive species do present a problem, whether it's something like the Emerald Ash Borer decimating white ash trees, or stink bugs, or spotted lanternflies. The problem is that *everything* is an emergency requiring additional money and power. You're assuming, I guess, that the mission of wildlife management is noble. And I guess it is, but whether this guy in question is guilty or not (of something) having two dozen charges, including felonies, for something like this seems incredibly insane. And while we fund these agencies to figure things like this out, at no point in human history has an agency ever said "we don't need to exist at this size and scope."

But I have also been arguing against the idea that the system works, because without an explanation as to why the deer population has supposedly exploded when other conservation efforts all follow a very similar track (elk, bison, bear, whatever) I tend to gravitate towards the idea that the population was never threatened in the first place. Not by hunting, at least, and not by habitat destruction. Now it may be a combination of different things and otherwise unknown factors that contribute to a local decline, including environmental factors. I don't know. But given that deer today are so resilient they are overpopulated to the point that most states have tens of thousands of deer hit by vehicles every year, I tend to think that they didn't change and that they were always that resilient. Now maybe it *was* local levels of extensive hunting, but that wasn't true everywhere. I mean it's just as likely, given the varied results all over the place (again, Pennsylvania, a neighboring state of similar size, did not have anywhere close to the supposed level of decline), that something like commercial refrigeration was just as likely the reason for decreased hunting pressure.

No, they get butthurt about an armed criminal trespassing on their private land to steal shit.

That paper says that deer population estimate is an inexact science *now*, let alone 100+ years ago when we had nothing close to similar methods. I mentioned Ernest Seton because the notion that whitetails were almost extinct comes almost entirely from him, and he didn't really base it on anything himself.

My argument is that wildlife management, like any government agency, can and will get something completely wrong, yet still retain the power and money that is otherwise predicated on them being right. I am also arguing that because they are sometimes right does not mean they are always right, and for the reasons I've outlined I do not believe the whitetail population was ever in any real danger as a species on the continent and a lot of management practices are thus based on faulty assumptions. That's all.

It doesn't help that these threads and any post on social media bring out the "hunt for meat" tards. I only take trophies and yes I will only do it on land that is owned by myself or family or a legal hunt elsewhere. Because 100000% people get crazy. I do hog for meat though.

Your old old boss was a retard.

Not sure what makes you think elk and whitetail are similar.  Elk and blacktail are more closely related to each other than whitetail are to either.  Whitetail are kind of their own thing.

I think it involves being naked while poaching.

He was not charged with spotlighting and killing a deer.  He was just charged with shinning a light on wildlife.   Imagine you are your buddy are 1/2 mile outside of a town by a church like this guy and a buck crosses the road at night in from of you.  You stop and pull a flashlight out of the glove box and get a better look at the deer.  THis would be a crime in Ohio.  

To make some argument that state fish and game agencies are akin to the most bloated and corrupt parts of our federal government is laughable.

In Ohio there is exactly one ODNR Officer per each county. My county, a rural county, we have hundreds of active officers working at different agencies and exactly one to enforce wildlife law.

Not to mention, in my almost 30 years afield I’ve interacted with exactly 3 wildlife officers. You could poach for years and get away with it if you were smart about it. Compared to any other regulated activity, enforcement of wildlife law is pretty lax.

When I killed a 197” B&C buck a few years ago did I get harassed by the ODNR? Nope. Didn’t even get a phone call.

I’m sure they probably looked at the coordinates when I validated my landowner game check, but that’s probably about it. (As they should.) Shit, I didn’t even buy a hunting license that year as I only hunted my own property (not required per state law.)

Is there government overreach going on in this county that is bloated and needs cut back? Sure.

But does that include state wildlife agencies that are largely self funded via license and tag sales? I don’t see it, especially when in large part they are doing a good job of exactly the thing they were put in place to do.

Do they get shit wrong sometimes? No doubt, and ours certainly hears from me when they are getting it wrong.

But I also know why they exist, and I wouldn’t want them to go away.

This guy was a serial offender. He is exactly the guy we pay our wildlife agencies to catch. Arguing against wildlife enforcement in this thread is, let’s just say odd.

Are you bad at math?

Mind yo bidness! You people always judge me!!!

In TN the landowner has to have a forking piece of paper saying it's legal to hunt on his own property!  Of course, the upside is no hunting fees hunting on your own property.  But still.  

Trespassing to hunt someone else's land and kill deer is literally the definition of poaching...

People who grow beards and shave off the mustache are pretty much always methbillies or similar.

I have heard of stories of bad interactions with fish cops. I've never had one. I've maybe interacted with one twice in my life, and one time the guy didn't even mention he was a warden until after we'd talked for a while.

I'm not arguing against enforcement. And yeah, I knew plenty of people in PA that did stuff like this (assuming this is true), and I don't care for it, not just because it's bad land management but because it gives hunters a bad name for a variety of reasons. But when I see something like this I usually think a few different things, ranging from "I'm glad all of the real problems in the world are solved" and "I can't believe they spend this much time and effort on pursuing a poacher." It's not just like they caught him jacklighting and taking a shot at an animal from the side of the road at night. I'm reading about warrants and cell phone metadata used to prosecute a case of poaching. That is insane to me, and there's a huge difference between game warden day to day enforcement and something like this.

It is in Alabama, too.