Hunting Violation:
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has caught three deer hunters from Idaho attempting to illegally pursue game over state lines in a sting operation using a remote-controlled mule deer buck.
The Jackson Hole News And Guide reports the department schedules the sting for the opening day of deer hunting in Idaho, which usually comes after the Wyoming season has concluded.
Oct. 30, 2017, at 2:36 p.m.
HEBRON, Maine (AP) — Family members of the Maine woman shot and killed by a hunter say she was on her own land digging for gemstones when she was killed.
Authorities say a 38-year-old Hebron man fatally shot 34-year-old Karen Wrentzel on Saturday morning. Officials have still not publicly identified the man, and did not say if he was on Wrentzel’s land when he shot her.
The Maine Warden Service concurred that Wrentzel was not hunting at the time, and had no affiliation with the shooter — who officials say was hunting with his father.
The warden service is investigating the shooting and says it is working with the Maine Attorney General’s Office on the case.
Mother Debbie Morin says Wrentzel didn’t know Saturday was opening day for hunting season in Maine.
The recent article, “It’s that Deer Time of Year,” offers tips to help drivers avoid hitting deer, but tells an incomplete story. While mating season initiates deer movement, hunting practices, too, are to blame. The Erie Insurance Group cites a five-fold increase in deer-related accidents on opening day—a statistic that has nothing to do with rut.
Unfortunately, the article also presents a platform for the Quality Deer Management Association, but offers no dissenting perspective. Despite the benign moniker, QDMA is dedicated to producing trophy-quality bucks through selective hunting and habitat manipulation. Like the DEC, QDMA seeks to normalize the recreational killing of wildlife through carefully constructed arguments which, to an undiscerning ear, sound like science.
The DEC’s recent Deer Management Study finds that “hunters prefer to harvest older bucks.” In other words, they pursue the biggest rack, despite the fact that killing bucks does not determine population. Dr. Allen Rutberg, a proponent of the newly EPA-approved deer contraceptive PZP, observes, “The most visible weakness in the assertion that hunting is necessary to control deer populations is that it has largely failed to do so… Just because deer are being killed doesn’t mean that deer populations are being controlled.”
Sadly, the DEC has done nothing to dispel the myth that deer numbers affect the incidence of Lyme disease in humans, while experts, including those from the Harvard School of Public Health, explicitly state otherwise. Deer neither carry nor transmit the disease, and not a single peer-reviewed study correlates deer culling with Lyme disease reduction in humans. There is, however, an abundance of data to suggest that killing deer has no impact on Lyme disease transmission.
What does impact tick population is the fox and lowly opossum. Opossums consume as many as 5,000 ticks per season, and foxes, who consume rodents, are essential to controlling the disease. But from late October until mid-February, New York hunters and trappers are permitted to kill an unlimited number of either species in any manner they see fit, including drowning, suffocating, and shooting. Coyotes, also essential to balanced ecosystems, are blamed by hunters for suppressing deer population, and endure six months of killing. Suggesting that we prevent Lyme disease by killing deer with bows and arrows in suburban backyards, or that we rectify the decline in hunting by encouraging 12-year-olds to shoot animals, is absurd.
Science doesn’t have an agenda, nor is it dependent on the sale of weapons or hunting licenses; but that is how our current system of wildlife management operates. The more we understand interdependency and ecosystem health, and the more diligently we assess the motivations of those who determine wild lives’ fate, the more evident the need for a balanced perspective.
Ashley Pankratz is a wildlife and outdoors enthusiast who lives in Livingston County.
Photo by Rob Ruth | Independent-Enterprise
A hunting trip for three members of a Payette family and a family friend was nearly in the books as a pleasant if uneventful success as night approached on Oct. 15.
Nicole Meacham, one family member who wasn’t on that trip into Washington County, said she received a phone call at home at roughly 8 p.m. from her husband, Michael Meacham, informing her that the hunting party would be loading up soon for the return trip home. First, however, Michael Meacham and the couple’s 16-year-old daughter, Alexandria, needed to retrieve a deer that had been shot minutes earlier by Michael and Nicole Meacham’s 11-year-old son.
Nicole said she received a call later that night from Washington County dispatch informing her that Alexandria had phoned in a report of an ATV accident involving her dad. By now darkness had fallen, the temperature would be dropping to below freezing, and the stranded father and daughter were the focus of a search and rescue effort.
Nicole said she decided to phone her own father, Payette resident Phil Burley, to have him drive out and participate in the search, especially since Burley was well familiar with the terrain. She said Burley quickly rounded up several friends and headed out.
The deer hunt took place off of Sheep Creek Road and over Dodson Pass, on Bureau of Land Management ground, Michael Meacham said. He said Alexandria had shot her own deer fairly early in the day, but her brother didn’t hit his until shortly before dusk. The deer took off running before it died, traversing approximately a mile of ground, Michael said. He added that they could pretty readily see where it had gone, however, so he decided to take Alexandria with him on his ATV to retrieve the animal while the other adult in the party, friend Josh Lucas, of Payette, went back to the pickup with Meacham’s son, who is also named Michael.
Obstacles
Partway to their intended destination, Meacham and his daughter were slowed by ground obstacles.
“I couldn’t navigate myself through the dark and the rocks and stuff, and I got myself into trouble trying to go through a little draw or ravine,” Meacham recalled.
He instructed Alexandria to wait on higher ground, out of harm’s way, while he tried to drive the ATV out of the draw. Dutifully, she walked up the slope and seated herself on a big rock to watch and wait.
To Alexandria’s horror, her father soon rolled the ATV, disappearing underneath the overturned machine, which was still running.
“I couldn’t see him and I couldn’t hear him,” Alexandria said.
After that very anxious long moment, she did hear him, however. Meacham was at least conscious enough to shout to be heard above the sound of the engine. He told Alexandria to switch off the motor. The father then struggled to slide himself out from underneath the machine and into the open.
Alexandria was meanwhile “freaking out” over the situation, Meacham said. “I drug myself from under there and told her to calm down,” he said. Meacham couldn’t go any farther, however, because his ankle was badly broken.
Alexandria responded well, and began performing the tasks most immediately needed, starting with going to higher ground to try and connect with 911.
The Weiser Signal American later reported that the girl’s call went to Baker County, which relayed the emergency information to Washington County. Matt Thomas, Washington County sheriff, told the Weiser newspaper that, in addition to local resources, the search and rescue effort also featured a helicopter from Two Bear Air Rescue in Kalispell, Montana. The helicopter is specially equipped to hoist an injured person from a constricted space.
Thomas told the Independent-Enterprise the special helicopter was indeed put to use lifting Meacham out of the narrow draw.
Waiting for help
That rescue didn’t occur until Monday morning in daylight, though, and the intervening night was a long one. Meacham said his daughter built a small fire a few different times. The fires furnished only a modest amount of heat. At other times Alexandria slept with her head on her father’s chest. He said he feared that she might suffer physical damage from the cold air if she slept too long, so he periodically awakened her and contrived various errands to get her walking around.
Meacham told the Independent-Enterprise that he was proud of how well his daughter took care of him.
“I was desperate and I was scared, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to help,” Alexandria said.
Sometime after daybreak, Alexandria encountered her first searcher. It happened to be none other than her grandpa, Phil Burley.
Meacham and Alexandria were soon both transported together via Life Flight to St. Alphonsus in Ontario, where the father had to remain a couple of days.
Recovery
Meacham said he underwent a surgery which included inserting a titanium rod just below his knee and continuing far down his leg. On Friday, two days after he was released, he said he was currently experiencing some pain, but the good news was that his leg was expected to “fully recover in about a year … like it never happened.”
Meacham and Alexandria were both on crutches last week, but they said Alexandria’s injury was only an ankle sprain. She had sustained the injury while stumbling around in the dark the night of their ordeal. On Friday she said the sprain wasn’t serious, and she was nearly ready to put the crutches aside.
Meacham said he drives a tow truck for a living, but he also manages the towing company, so there will be plenty of desk work to keep him busy once he returns to work.
He said one lesson he takes from the hunting trip’s mishap is to delay retrieving an animal if it’s too far away and the sun is going down.
“What I should have done was waited till morning,” he said.
Matt Geddings with a nice buck taken on a Lowcountry deer drive.
The e-mail on July 18 from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources said that I would be getting my deer tags in the mail soon. I was a little bit surprised, and somewhat confused. Wouldn’t I need to apply for the tags online or pick them up at one of the regional offices? I had not bought my new hunting license yet, but the tags arrived in the mail a few days later.
I had been to the meetings and read all the articles that I saw in magazines and local newspapers. I had talked to people at SCDNR and other hunters. I thought that I understood the new tag program completely, but I was wrong. Apparently the DNR intended all along to mail tags to current license holders and anyone purchasing a new license beginning July 1.
OK, I know that any new program can have some confusion and a few snafus. It’s to be expected, so I’ve gone back to the DNR website and reviewed all the information that I could find. I think I’m up to speed with the info now.
The lack of a reasonable limit and enforcement effort on buck deer in the past have been a function of history, tradition and politics — not science.
Under the new law, all deer will be required to be tagged at the point of the kill. The deer only has to be tagged from the point of kill, during transport and until it is processed or cut up. Once the deer is quartered, or boned out, the tagging requirement goes away.
Some hunters have asked how a tagging system can be enforced. If someone chooses to take the risk of not tagging a deer, and he or she is caught, fines can reach more than $1,000. Also, processors will not take untagged deer because taking possession of an illegal deer is a violation. Most hunters are good and honest people. Good people police themselves, and no law can persuade bad people to do the right thing.
Under the new law, South Carolina residents will automatically receive a set of deer tags at no cost when they purchase a hunting license, or if their license will be valid when the hunting season begins. Tags will not be available at over-the-counter vendors, such as sporting goods stores. They became available after Aug. 1 at DNR regional offices. The base set of tags consists of three unrestricted buck tags and eight date-specific antlerless deer tags. Residents can purchase two additional restrictive buck tags for $5 each.
Youth hunters under the license age of 16 must request the free base set of tags annually. Tags will be available over the counter at DNR regional offices in Charleston, Clemson, Columbia, and Florence. Tags can also be ordered by phone at 1-866-714-3611 or via the internet. Contact information will be required to include date of birth and SSN. The youth will be given a customer ID number for future use. The additional tags may also be purchased.
Lifetime/ Senior/ Gratis/ Disability hunters must also request the free base set of tags annually. Not all of these 200,000 license holders are deer hunters and it would wasteful to send tags to all. Additional deer tag purchases are the same as resident and youth hunters.
Many hunt clubs, especially in the Lowcountry, may be enrolled in the Deer Quota Program. The new Deer Quota Program is similar to the old Antlerless Deer Quota Program. The only difference is that all deer must be tagged to include bucks, and the number of deer, to include bucks, that can be harvested will be determined by the DNR.
On dog drives, the person killing a deer must tag it with a personal tag, or if the property is enrolled in the quota program, one of the tags issued to the property should be used to tag the deer.
I haven’t even touched on the nonresident requirements, and some of you may still have questions. If so, you can email the DNR at Deer Tags@dnr.sc.gov or go online to www.dnr.sc.gov. Select “deer” under the hunting tab and click onto the New Deer Tag Information.
Dan Geddings is a native of Clarendon County currently residing in Sumter. He is founder and president of Rut and Strut Hunting Club in Clarendon County and a member of Buckhead Hunting Club in Colleton County.
CLICK HERE for more from CASH COURIER NEWSLETTER, Fall 2017
By Peter Muller, VP of C.A.S.H.
Trophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game for human recreation. In “Trophy Hunting” the entire animal or part of the animal is kept as the “trophy.” It is frequently kept as a remembrance of the hunt. The game sought is usually the oldest with the largest body size, largest antlers or other distinguishing attributes.
Trophy hunting has both supporters as well as opponents – both from within the hunting fraternity and from outside of it. Discussions concerning trophy hunting are not only about the question of the morality of recreational hunting and the supposed conservation efforts of hunting, but also the observed decline in the animal species that are targets for trophy hunting.
Trophy hunting occurs internationally at many levels. We all remember the worldwide press coverage and outcry that Cecil received with many negative comments regarding that taking.
Was it legal?
Was Cecil “set up” for the kill by a wealthy American?
What was the benefit of the money paid by the hunter to the local community?
and so on..
However, let’s restrict this discussion to the US only and look at the arguments in favor and opposed to trophy hunting in the US.
In the US, trophy hunters select their targets according to whether the animal has the largest horns, antlers, or other visible attributes that would be of importance to pass on to future generations – in other words, they are genetically laden with attributes that need to be passed on to future generations for the benefit of the species as a whole.
To selectively kill off these genetically laden members of the species will gradually diminish these positive attributes from appearing in future versions of the species as a whole. In other words, the species, as a whole would slowly but surely decline.
Trophy hunting causes what has been referred to as “unnatural selection.” It has been shown to reduce antler size and body size in roe deer and horn size and body size in mountain sheep.
This unnatural selection which is common to all groups that are trophy hunted likely compromises the long-term viability of all terrestrial and aquatic species.
You can read more here: Fred Allendorf and Jeffery Hard, “Human Induced Evolution Caused by Unnatural Selection through Harvest of Wild Animals,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106 (2009); 9987-94.
To compensate for smaller bucks, game managers now cooperate with the Quality Deer Management Association to build herds with large antlers for sport hunting.
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A fog looms over Rimrock lake off of U.S. Highway 12 near White Pass, Wash., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The area has already seen snow this fall, not as much as pictured here, but that won’t be far away. (SOFIA JARAMILLO/Yakima Herald-Republic file)
NACHES, Wash. — A 28-year-old Olympia man is at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow while hunting near Rimrock Lake Thursday.
But it took more than two hours to get him there after a helicopter had to turn around due to of inclement weather.
The man was hunting with a primitive, muzzle-loading rifle, said sheriff’s Sgt. Judd Towell. Just after 10:30 a.m., he slipped and dropped his rifle, which fell behind his arm and discharged — shooting him in the back of the elbow, said Chief Criminal Deputy Ed Levesque. Deputies would not release the man’s name Thursday.
Towell said when the older, more primitive weapons hit the ground it sometimes causes them to release the lock and fire.
The man was able to apply his own tourniquet, tell dispatchers where he was and walk to the nearest road so deputies could find him, Towell said.
“He’s a pretty responsible guy,” he said. “He really saved his own life.”
An ambulance picked him up around 1 p.m., and took him to a local hospital, before he was flown to Harborview. Information on his condition was not available Thursday evening.
Towell said the gunshot wound was not life-threatening, however the man could lose his arm.
Courtesy of Luke Clayton
The start of hunting season is underway, and this year the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made a significant change to its hunting rules. Through the duration of deer hunting season, hog hunting is no longer allowed on Corps land. Deer hunting season is Sept. 30 until the first of January.
According to Mike Stephens, Collin County game warden, this rule was instituted to reduce the risk of illegal hunting White Tail deer in Collin County.
As Collin County has changed and developed, rural spaces are now being developed for homes, businesses and community centers. This change has significantly reduced the roaming space for wildlife in the county.
“With all the urbanization in Collin County, we’re really pushing a lot of the animals in different directions, and one of those animals is our deer herd,” he said.
The county’s deer population is quite small; however, what the herds lack in numbers, they make up for in antler size.
“We have very very large antlers in Collin County. Trophy bucks in any other county are your typical deer here in Collin. We’re very fortunate because we have a lot of trophy here, but there’s not [as much] range for these deer,” Stephens said.
The majority of the deer herds call 6,000 acres of Corps land home near Lake Lavon. This land is free and open to the public – with a permit – for dove, squirrel rabbit, and, until recently, feral hog hunting. Wardens have had an issue with illegal deer hunting on Corps land in the past, Stephens said and hog hunting was often the main reason why.
According to Stephens, if approached by a game warden, hunters tell wardens they’re hog hunting even though they plan on deer hunting. Hunters can have all the tools that suggest they’re deer hunting, but there’s nothing wardens can do to prove them otherwise, he said. “We have to take their word for it. That has been the norm.”
But now that hog hunting is outlawed, “that excuse doesn’t fly anymore,” he said, which will help game wardens crack down on poachers in the area.
All deer hunting in Collin County occurs on privately owned land, “so unless you know somebody or you’re paying for a lease, the possibilities of deer hunting are not going to be available to you,” he said. Illegally hunting deer is a state jail felony, and the Corps is prepared to prosecute and demand restitution for any lost deers.
Stephens added that first-time hunters looking to legally hunt this year must also attend a hunting education course. The latest legislation states anyone born on or after Sept. 2, 1971, must attend a classroom or online course to obtain this education license. Veterans, law enforcement or current military personnel are exempt from this rule.
First-time hunters should also keep their rifles or shotguns at home if they plan to hunt deer in Collin County: It’s an archery-only county.
“With the rifle, you have the distance on the animals. It’s a lot easier to kill the deer. With archery, it’s a lot more competitive. It’s more of a sport hunt,” he said. “And a lot of that deals with our herd. We don’t have a very large herd here, so we want to preserve that herd for future generations to hunt.”
MONTGOMERY COUNTY PARKS
Several weeks into the Montgomery Parks bow-hunting season, appellate judges in Annapolis on Thursday heard attorneys argue about whether this method of culling deer is animal cruelty.
Bethesda resident Eilene Cohhn has spent about two years challenging a deer-management policy that she believes is inhumane and unnecessary. Her representative, a staff attorney with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, argues that it’s also unlawful.
“The (Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission) has the right to kill deer. They don’t have the right to make them suffer before they die, if that is avoidable,” attorney Jenni James said, adding that using sharpshooters is preferable.
But an attorney for the park system contended that prohibitions against mistreating animals deal primarily with harming pets, not killing deer.
“I would submit that the animal cruelty code really has no application to hunting at all,” MNCPPC attorney William Dickerson said.
James rebutted that she doesn’t believe the archery program counts as “hunting,” in the legal sense. While most people think of hunting as a sporting activity done for fun or for food, MNCPPC established the archery program to help control the deer population, she said. Therefore, it shouldn’t qualify for the hunting exemption to the state’s animal cruelty law, James argued.
The three judges who listened to the roughly hour-long debate pressed James to explain what distinguishes Montgomery County’s bow hunting from similar lawful activities across the state.
“Why can’t they, on their land, authorize the same thing that could be done on Fort Frederick State Park?” Judge Donald Beachley asked, referring to a park west of Hagerstown.
James said the park system’s purpose—to thin the deer herds—and ability to choose other options set this situation apart.
Beachley also referenced a state bear hunting program and asked whether that, too, violates the animal cruelty laws because its objective is population management.
The PETA attorney responded that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has greater authority to run hunting programs than MNCPPC.
The judges spent less time questioning Dickerson, although they did ask him whether the MNCPPC hunt follows DNR guidelines. Dickerson said it did.
They also pushed back on Dickerson’s suggestion that the animal protection laws don’t have any bearing on hunting activities; Judge Andrea Leahy noted that the statute requires hunters to use the “most humane method reasonably available.”
Montgomery Parks in 2015 added archery to its deer management program, which also includes shotgun hunting and Park Police sharpshooting. Through the program, groups of insured archery hunters take aim at deer in parts of Great Seneca Stream Valley Park in Germantown and Watts Branch Stream Valley Park in Potomac from September through January, according to its website.
For about 20 years, MNCPPC has been hunting deer as a strategy for controlling an overpopulation problem that can damage wild habitats and increase the likelihood of car crashes.
It decided to explore bow hunting in parks near communities or other areas where shooting a firearm might be unsafe.
Cohhn said her home backs up to Stratton Local Park in Bethesda, and she often has deer meandering through her yard.
“I’ve gone out at night, and they’re on my porch. They’re the babies,” she said. “They’re beautiful animals.”
Cohhn said she wishes people could coexist with deer, but if officials find it necessary to curb the population, sharpshooting is a more humane approach than archery.
The likelihood of maiming a deer instead of killing it rises with archery, compared to shooting, James said. Deer shot with an arrow tend to die more slowly, she added.
Parks officials report that in its first two seasons, the archery pilot program wounding rate was 7 percent and 3 percent, an indication of how many deer were shot but not immediately killed.
Cohhn filed her lawsuit about two years ago in Montgomery County Circuit Court. After a judge last year ruled against Cohhn and PETA, she appealed her case to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals for consideration.
James said she doesn’t know when to expect the appeals court judges to issue a decision in the case.
ROCKVILLE, Ind. – Two Indiana women were filming a TV show when they were cited for allegedly using bait to hunt deer, according to Fox59.
Now, Jody L. Davies, 47, and Sarah Ross, 32, are facing multiple counts of hunting deer with the aid of bait as well as charges for an illegally taken deer.
Conservation officers say the charges are the result of an extensive investigation conducted over the past three years.
DNR says multiple baited stands have been identified and documented on hunting properties used by the women in both Parke and Putnam counties beginning in 2015.
Officers say Davies has been featured on social media and in articles with many prominent outdoor magazines in reference to the two trophy class whitetail bucks she killed in 2015 and 2016, both of which were harvested during the investigation. She also reportedly films for a hunting TV show.
Officers want to remind hunters that all substances placed for animal consumption, along with any affected soil, must be completely removed from the hunting area at least ten days prior to the hunting.
Exposing the Big Game 