Tis The Poaching Season

[Pangloss62]

Damn! That's a lot o' moose burgers.

On the evening of Sunday, September 17th, a local hunter reported the presence of a possible hunting camp in the northeast corner of the park, where hunting is prohibited. The park pilot conducted an overflight of the area, located the camp, and observed a moose kill site approximately two miles inside the park boundary. Aerial observations suggested that the hunters had illegally used ATV’s to access the area. Three rangers flew to the site by helicopter early on Monday morning and apprehended two hunters – 54 year-old Delmar Neeley of Anderson, Alaska, and 22 year-old Robert Maxfield of Nenana, Alaska. The rangers seized a 43-inch bull moose (43 inches is the measurement of the maximum width between the bull's antlers) along with weapons and other evidence. To prevent further resource damage, one of the hunters’ two ATV’s was sling-loaded to a point outside the park boundary. Activation of the hunters’ own GPS receiver at the kill site showed that they were well inside the park. Misdemeanor Lacey Act and other charges against the two are pending

[Elspode]

Further proof that people frequently suck and will do anything they think they can get away with.

I'll bet the price per pound for this moose meat and rack is going to be a bit lofty.

[Pangloss62]

I'll bet the price per pound for this moose meat and rack is going to be a bit lofty.

Well, take the cost of the overflights (fuel, pay hours), the cost of hauling out that ATV, the cost of loading up that moose flesh, and the cost of processing the criminals, and you have some filet mingnon prices fer shur.

Alaska is usually pretty good with getting extra salmon out to the poor people, of which there are many in the state, but I don't know to what stomachs, if any, that moose meat will find its way.

I don't know about you, spode, but I just don't get big game hunting. I get it if you are a paleo-Indian, but not if your are some modern-day middle-class dude. I can hardly stomach those hunting shows on ESPN and OLN.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

...I don't know about you, spode, but I just don't get big game hunting. I get it if you are a paleo-Indian, but not if your are some modern-day middle-class dude. I can hardly stomach those hunting shows on ESPN and OLN.

I've never killed anything but putting a mangled possum out of its misery, but I don't mind hunting, if the meat is eaten. In fact, I've considered taking up hunting, so I can feed the family after the end of civilization as we know it. That would be next, I think.

PS: Delmar?!

[Pangloss62]

but I don't mind hunting, if the meat is eaten.

I don't know. We've spent thousands of years domesticating animals so we don't "have" to hunt. We've already killed off thousands of species of plants and animals, so why kill more? Ironically, we killed the most important ones, the ones that prey on the megafauna, so now we have rampant deer herds getting malnourished because of their population explosion.

How bout if you just hunt skinny, malnourished deer in the suburbs for now? Or at least wait until the apocalypse.

Good thing they are not in Africa... or is it?

It is a good skill to have.

[bbro]

I used to know a lot of people that would go hunting (legally) and eat the meat for the rest of the year. It would save them money because they weren't the most prosperous people. I think I kind of agree that if it is eaten and used it is fine. Not just killed to put a head on a wall.

[Elspode]

I agree that trophy hunting is nothing more than exhibitionism without pulling out your cock. Hunting for food is 100% reasonable, IMHO.

[Pangloss62]

It's certainly not a cut and dry situation (is that a animal-skinning metaphor?).

Most unprosperous people here in the ATL are obese, but there aren't always a lot of McDs in the rural areas, so I can see huntin and freezin the meat.

This reminds me of an e-mail my friend in Oregon sent me last winter. It's a good read (she's a greenie/crunchy in a Red/Rual area):

Eastern Oregon, circa early winter 2006:
Last night I attended a town meeting sponsored by the ailing timber/agriculture industries. I was the only person there who hadn't lived here at least 5 years. I also had the only car in the parking lot with a ski rack (instead of a trailer hitch, for my snowmobiles) and 4 cylinders instead of 8. (Oh, yeah -- there are no compact parking spaces anywhere in John Day.)

Anyway .... most folks showed up because it's also the annual Road Kill Chili Feed -- and they weren't kidding. There was one chili dubbed "Mile marker 149." But the one that stopped me cold was ... Bobcat Chili. And they may not have been kidding. The elderly lady across the table from me said she'd eaten cougar before and didn't like it so she wasn't touching the bobcat.

My boss goes bobcat hunting on weekends. He calls it "out looking for kitty cats." He said the "interesting" thing about bobcats is that when they get caught in a leghold trap, "they just lay down, they don't try to get away." Oregon has outlawed hunting for mountain lions with dogs because it was deemed unsportsmanlike, but you can still set traps for bobcats.

My coworker (there are only 3 of us in winter) announced he had twins the other day and he meant baby cows. On his weekends, for fun, he does team roping. Next month is when the big ranches will run their herds through town -- I'm not sure where to (their imminent deaths?) but it should be another valued cultural experience. Bring your cameras and pull up a stump in front of Otis' Barber Shop.

Anyway, at last night's meeting, Bill Clinton got lots of laughs, and the buzzwords were "manage" and "treat." These translate to "cut" and "kill," depending on whether they were talking about forests or wolves. As in "How many acres did we treat in 1993?" or "Idaho gets to manage wolves; why can't Oregon?"

At one point, a guy held up the 1907 USFS handbook and said "Why can't we go back to this?" (Ah, maybe because there are no big trees left, and that's what that book was all about?)

I saw a man wearing a shirt with an elk head embroidered above his heart. Women wore sweatshirts with chipmunks and bird feeders and white picket fences imprinted.

One audience member said, "We need to load all the environmentalists on a bomber and drop them on Iraq."

They blamed Portland and Eugene (but not Corvallis, home of the timber-industry-sponsored OSU School of Forestry) for all the economic problems east of the Cascades. "How do we get urban America to care about rural America?" one guy said, then added that it was "a silly prescription" to be told not to cut within 300 feet of a stream. (Ah, let's see -- maybe urban America will care about rural America when rural America cares about rural America?) Oh, yeah, and this guy is the chief forester for the USFS here. For the past 22 years.

As for my job, it's going great, truly, as long as no one asks me on a weekend hunting or logging excursion. Work has provided some terrific out-of-town trips to meet with other staff in the region, which is absolutely gorgeous to drive through this time of year. It's like motoring through a national park -- and, well, part of it is, the John Day Fossil Beds Nat'l Monument. The rest of it is giant ranch holdings or private timberlands, with some USFS and BLM lands tossed in here and there, so you don't see many settlements and even fewer people (but lots of cows). It was wonderful last week because the snow is so deep it's concealed all the fences, so I could imagine taking off from the road and cross-country skiing. My biggest challenge here is how to ski with fences.

On one of our work trips we took the scenic route so my boss could look for elk, which he is able to track by their hoofprints in snow by the roadside, which he was doing while he drove us through a snowstorm at 50 mph -- and he was not using the 4WD in our pickup -- to attend a .... driving safety class. Taught by a guy from England. A guy who drives on the left is teaching all Oregon state employees how to be safe drivers.

At the class, the instructor asked for examples of distractions while in a car. "A good-looking guy," one woman said. "A pretty woman," a guy said. "A big ol' elk up on a hillside," said another.

Fred, meanwhile, is holed up in Eugene, where he's mopping up after a major flood through our garage. Well, someone has to stay in Eugene and defend our right to eat tofu and commute by bike.

I leave tomorrow for my first of two weeks training at the police academy, where I will be issued a citation book and a fat leather-bound notebook that, my boss says, I'll be told not to tear any pages out of because that looks bad if I'm asked for details while on the witness stand. I can't wait for the chance to testify against all these hostile museum-goers.

Marti

[xoxoxoBruce]

We've been subsistence hunting for a pretty long time now. In Alaska, it's still the rule rather than the exception. I'm sure they would rather hunt than pay half their food budget for meat. They would rather eat game than hormone ridden, mad cows? Sounds good to me.

The Federal Government has grabbed 2/3 of Alaska for parks, Preserves, Wilderness Areas, National Forests, Scenic Areas and what not.
They're lucky they're not like Nevada at 91%.

Those guys know the rules and if they didn't know they were on park land, it's because they didn't bother to check their GPS and a map. It's not necessary to hunt the park because Alaska is knee deep in moose. That said, a lot of the native Alaskans have trouble understanding why they can shoot a moose here but not over there. It all looks the same for many, many miles.
They'll pay a heavy price for that moose and not get to eat it. Plus they, and their friends at the bar, will have a little bigger resentment for the Feds.


Marti sounds like she finds the natives very entertaining. Fine, as long as she keeps in mind, they are the natives. She is the tofu eating tourist in those parts.

.... driving safety class. Taught by a guy from England. A guy who drives on the left is teaching all Oregon state employees how to be safe drivers.

And the government bureaucrats don't understand why the people have no respect for them.

A well kept secret among the Green community is that hunters are environmentalist and the ones with the deepest pockets when it comes to paying for pristine land, so when a State and a Green org. go head to head the Green goes to the local Duck, Moose, Deer, etc, hunters orgs for the jack for the land and for long term contracts and terms for the management of the land. The hunters, in turn, keep quiet about where the money came from.
This has been going on for hundreds of years. There are more white tailed deer in the US now than there were when Columbus landed... we need hunters for population control. Land owners and the States cannot do it.
Not only is there nothing wrong with culling, it has to be done.
Also, it is better for you &, IMO, tastes a hell of a lot better.
If you eat meat, wear leather, use glue, have it in your car or anywhere else, something dies... it does not matter what.
End of story.

Poachers, on the other-hand are criminals and need to be treated as such, at all times. They are discharging firearms... the crime needs to be treated with the weight of that in mind.
In Africa they are shot on sight.
I do not think it needs to be that steep, but very steep.
On our ranch, if they did not drop their weapons as soon as we told them to we did shoot at them. Poachers tend to shoot instead of giving-up.
They are scum that destroy the breeding cycles of animals, they care nothing for the environment.

[wolf]

The last time they tried a controlled hunt near me, PETA members were trying to throw themselves between the deer and the hunters. Luckily, the hunters have better shot discipline than the PETA members.

The whole idea of PETA is so backwards it is truly insane & I do think that animals have a soul and deserve as much dignity as can be given.

[Pangloss62]

I have a vegan, PETA-like coworker who drives me nuts with his illogic. He will eat veggies from factory farms and see no connection between his American way of life and the habitat that was destroyed to allow him to enjoy it. He thinks he's "better" than we meat eaters. He's really weird, too. One time while driving with him for work he saw a squirrel way up the road and literally started yelling "Slow down! Slow down!" Well, if you know squirrels, the best way to avoid squishing them is to maintain your speed and trajectory because they always do that hesitate dance; if you slow down suddenly you can end up squishing them. But this guy spent the whole rest of the trip sulking because I did not slow down (the squirrel was fine, BTW). And now he always tells the story like I was some evil, callous animal hater. What a jerk! Besides, I can identify most any bird or animal I ever see and he can't tell the difference between a Cooper's Hawk and a Red Tail.

Yes. Cull the deer. They graze on median strips now. Evolution in our own lifetime.