badshotbob

allow some forms of poaching?

Davidmil' s thread on " Your Hunting Roots" post inspired this question, one I' ve had a long time.

I wanted to be a conservation officer, even took the test but failed (had to have 100/100, I got 99). I didn' t bother in retaking the test because I was afraid I would be somewhat of a hypocrite doing this line of work. I used to live in a poor county of MI where my neighbor had a not so good job, 4 kids, and a stay home wife. He poached all season killing several deer a year. He would take one with a gun license, but the rest were illegal. However, he fed his family on these deer and honestly needed the meat as he was too proud to go on welfare and get foodstamps. I would be hard pressed to arrest a guy like this. In fact, I would look the other way.

Odd question I know, but really curious about your opinions on this.

davidmil

I don' t know if they would or should feel like letting someone walk now days. If someone wants to work, in most cases they can find something. It might not be real glamorous, but it would feed you. With the cost of things today I think a guy would have to swallow his pride and take the foodstamps to feed his family if that' s all there was. Now a guy living in the boonies with no chance of work around, well, he can feed them without getting caught. It' s impossible for todays wardens to separate fact from fiction. I' m sure it would be a case by case thing and really... who knows. The warden has to do what he' s got to do and let the courts sort it out if the warden doesn' t want to make the choice. I think if he knew the people and any unusual circumstances... well ... whatever he wants to do. The 50s were a different time in a different country. The country had just gone through 2 wars, unemployment was horrendous etc.

PABowhntr

I would agree with David on this one. It depends on the individual situation in my book. I wish the world was as " black and white" as some folks make it out to be but it really isn' t.

stork

I would on a case by case sitution. There are people that poach around here and some of them need and use the meat. I would never effect them. The " Early Season Horn Hunters" are the ones that I would like to hang by the nuts!

who_else

bob, in what state were u testing in? i want to become a conservation officer and i am trying to get all the info i need. did u take any college classes for this also, thanks.

NorthernHunter

Hmmm...? I think if that were me and things were tough and I had to feed my family, I' d take deer illegally in order to feed my family. That is, if I lived on the farm and the deer were on my property and no one else lived close by, I' d drop a few deer, make some steaks and roasts, etc. It' s a tough call and you' d think this sort of thing would have gone away in the 1900s, but I am sure some people in extreme rural areas have no choice.

badshotbob

who_else: This was in Michigan. I didn' t take a class, just asked around as to what the test would be like. Here in MI, it' s the same test the state troopers take prior to getting in. There were a lot of observation questions on there - they would show a fake crime seen for 30 seconds, then you' d have to answer a bunch of questions about what was in the scene. Most questions were common sense and really psycological in nature to make sure you weren' t nuts I guess.

dpv

Before I would allow my family to starve, I would kill you, skin you and fire up the grill. The big difference here is do they have any other choices. You just said he did. Public assistance was available. That' s a tough call, but they call it " conditional enforcement" . You can' t possibly enforce evvery law 100% of the time. You have to make judgement calls.

David

Ken/WV

I would kick my own butt for being a total butthead like 99% of game wardens are.

6pt125lbs

as long as he didnt run dogs or spotlight i wouldnt say much as long as hedidnt take more than his limit on all seasons like if you can kill 2 w/ bow and 2 w/ gun and 2 w/ muzzle and he just killed 6 a year i wouldnt say a thing about it to him as long as i got some backstrap outta the deal