New West Feature
Despite Best Efforts, Poaching Still Plagues the Rockies
Officials believe almost as many animals are killed illegally as the legal take.By New West Editor, 8-22-11
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| Poached bull elk in southern Utah. Photo courtesy of Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. | |
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More than 5,000 reports have been received of poaching in Colorado since 1981, resulting in more than 900 convictions, for which about $800,000 in fines were levied, and $150,000 paid to citizens for reports of suspected poaching, a recent summary asserts.
Studies show that poachers kill almost as many animals as legitimate hunters do during legal seasons in various states, says the report, from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). It points out that poachers steal not only revenues generated by legitimate hunting, but kill threatened, endangered and non-game species.
Notifications of suspected poaching arrive through Operation Game Thief, a program pioneered by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, which has been adopted by 49 of the 50 states.
Bob Thompson, acting chief of wildlife law enforcement for CPW, retiterated an agency theme that it’s a romantic myth to regard poachers as poor people trying to feed their families. Some kill for the thrill of killing and others for trophies, he said. Some kill for money, because trophy heads, antlers and bear gall bladders can be worth thousands of dollars.
“Hunters who keep shooting into a herd of animals should realize that not every animal goes down right away when it is hit,” Thompson said. “Not only is it unethical hunting, it leads to a lot of game waste, which in itself is illegal.”
Examples of mindless poaching are not hard to find. A particularly bad one occurred early this month north of Belgrade, Montana, when someone shot a black bear sow in the neck, leaving its cub to try to nurse on the dead mother.
The 25-pound yearling was captured by FWP personnel, weaned, fitted with a ear tag for monitoring, and released. The poacher has not been captured.
“I have seen people kill stuff out of season, but this was a senseless killing of a mother with a cub,” game warden Brian Lloyd of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said in the Belgrade News.
Pronghorn shot and left in Emery County, Utah. Photo courtesy of Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Last week, a father and son from Oregon admitted to federal wildlife violations that for five years they had brought other Oregon clients to hunt big game illegally on a ranch in Park County, unbeknownst to the ranch’s owner, although his stepson and wife were charged with violations of state law.
An AP report said the two men, who acknowledged killing more than 300 deer in five years, will spend the next four deer seasons in jail and have been stripped of their hunting privileges for life.
Last winter, Idaho Fish & Game reported that seven deer and elk had been shot and left to waste during about one month along a road near Kamiah, Idaho. “We’ve investigated poaching activity in this area in the past, but nothing to this extent,” conservation officer Roger Westfall, told Spokane’s Spokesman-Review. “There is no excuse for these senseless crimes.”
The Colorado Division of Wildlife offered its maximum reward of $5,000 last winter for information on who had fatally shot a prize bull elk in downtown Estes Park with an arrow. The animal was the star attraction of the Elk Fest at the park.
One of the most high-profile poaching cases recently in the region concerned Idaho Falls elk rancher Rex Rammell, who last year finished second to incumbent Butch Otter in a six-way race for Idaho’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, garnering 26 percent of the vote. The story of Rammell’s poaching charges was published early this year on NewWest.Net.
This month, Rammell pleaded guilty to criminal contempt after trying to distribute leaflets among potential jurors of his trial for poaching. In July, he was convicted of a misdemeanor for killing a cow elk the previous winter in a different hunting zone than that permitted on his tag, which was expired.
After being charged late last year, he released a statement blaming the sporting goods store from which he purchased the tag for giving him misinformation. He wrote that he had told the Idaho Fish and Game warden who caught him dragging the animal behind his snowmobile, “You better get your gun out, because you’re going to have to shoot me if you want this elk.”
Rammell’s hunting license was suspended for two years, and he was required to pay $1,250 in fines and fees, plus serve a 175-day jail sentence, which was stayed while he appeals the verdict.
Another political operative, Randy Vogel, was charged with poaching last spring, one day after being appointed state director for Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg. He claimed the charge that he illegally shot a spike elk was politically motivated.
The prosecution argued that Vogel, a former police officer, subsequently sold his rifle to an anonymous buyer because he knew the weapon would incriminate him. No evidence emerged that Vogel had fired the .270 caliber bullet, and he was acquitted.
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Comments
I would say that is a conservative estimate
I think two of the most common methods of poaching are a husband shoots an animal on his wife's tag, or a couple of people have tags for different sexes so whoever shoots any animal they have a tag. Illegal and fairly common.
I look at every pile of bones I ever find while walking in the woods, I've yet to see a deer or elk skull with horns sawn off.
There is something to be said for playing by the rules though. When I meet a fish and game officer I never have to be guarded in what I say because neither I nor any of my friends have anything that needs not mentioning. Makes life simpler.
There's no excuse for poaching, period. Game management sets quotas for a reason, hopefully scientific of course.
Seems to me this was just an opportunity by "New West Editor" to take gratuitous shots at two evil Republicans -- Randy Vogel was found innocent, after all.
Vehicles killing animals is the greatest impact on animal life in the US today. Too fast and too many and center dividers, and no other means to migrate by crossing the highway or freeway. Damned shame. A great transportation "stimulus" or infrastructure improvement would be under and over passes, fencing, to direct and move animals large and small across the deadly highways. My wife and I took a little sunday drive a week ago, and saw a dead black bear, two dead deer, one dead elk, a couple dozen dead racoons, and many birds and other small mammals, including one mink and one otter. We have to recognize that vehicles are the killers of way too much animal life, and very well ought to be mitigating that waste with some enlightened improvements on how we manage our roadways. Of course, if we manage our roadways the way the Feds manage public lands, then all is lost. Maybe the USDOT is as incompetent as the Federal land management agencies.
Poachers do kill animals, and more than you would think. There was a time, when there were a third the number people here that there are now, and times were tougher than they now are, when "side hill salmon" , "slow elk", Summer bucks, summer not, and all the rest were part of the vernacular and the local diet. I had a guy tell me that his brother and he spotlighted a little when they were kids, and one night the eyeballs belonged to a horse. Not a word was said. But their Dad was up and gone two hours before daylight, and breakfast was early for kids at that logger's home. When the boys got up for breakfast, there was a shovel leaning against each of their chairs. Not a word was said. A lot of dirt was moved before the school bus came for them. And a horse was buried. HE told me he never did find out how his father had known as he was sleeping when they had come in the house.
We lose wildlife to a death of a thousand cuts. One percent here, and another there, and it all adds up, with no additions, and always subtractions. A cleared fence row. A ditch cleaned out to handle more winter run off. Trees shading a field cut. Little teeny alterations, and when all are accounted for, the loss is great.
And then you get to the insanity of NGO lawsuits, and the amorphous blob that three decades of litigation and no alterations to clarify the ESA have wrought, and you find out that a well intentioned and well done USFS oak-pine savannah restoration that has the intent to keep doug fir weed from overgrowing 500 year old white oaks and all the pine reproduction, is going to be challenged because of red tree voles, and their elevated position on the ecology chain linking them to spotted owl food. The invasive doug fir have voles, and each tree with a surveyed vole has a not cut boundary around it. So even if the fir is shading out oaks to their death, on a savannah being lost to doug fir second growth incursion, you sacrifice the oaks to save a mammal that is supposed to end up as food, anyway. Only the owls don't live there because the multi storied forest and nest trees are not there, and any of the size that could be potential owl habitat are being lost to the fir incursions. Warm, dry south slope savannahs are there because of aboriginal burning over millennia created them. Genocide killed the savannah maintenance people, and it sort of irks me that national "green" organizations are still purposefully supporting the erasing of the last vestiges of pre-European people on the landscape. The red tree vole gets unlimited support from the litigators of the environment, and Native American cultural sites, and their managed vegetation gets obliterated by purposeful hands off land management. All of which says that the urban experts of today would never make it in the world of tooth and claw, and hunting and gathering, and the tending of the wild for human survival. I guess that is to be expected from the entitled poofs that are the most vocal about never cutting a tree as the key to human survival. I guess all that investigation, research, and surveying required by law produces results that are meaningless if they don't support a total hands off management strategy. And then it all burns and who gives a hoot? the owls? no. People like me who mourn the loss of the giant sugar pines that had survived centuries of controlled burning by aboriginals. The loss of the 84" dbh incense cedar I saw last week. The little copses of ponderosa pine, some with slick bark that was grey, and other with giraffe patterned bark that was yellow to orange to almost blood red. The old growth forest was spatially separated large open grown trees, sometimes by hundreds of feet, survivors of multiple fire events now being starved for water and space by invading doug fir that is only there because the Molalla people are gone, and the Klamath people are no longer using the savannahs as a trade route. They are not there because the US Govt had a genocide plan it was following. Instead, the land is managed by the USFS which now has a very large scale plan to manage that landscape for an oak-pine savannah, and the latest threat is OregonWild who wants no doug fir cut because they are red tree vole habitat. God is an NGO. I didn't realize that until last week. Or at least that is how this deal looks like it will play out. Cultural genocide directed towards historical Native American landscape patterns and use is part and parcel of environmental NGO beliefs, and I believe that those savannahs are constructs that are protected by the Antiquities Act. After all, if you can be arrested and tried for digging in a 1950 privy site for bottles under that Act, it sure as hell can protect human created landscapes that are older than our written history.
And, those people were poachers, as well. Living off the land. By today's definitions.
I would say cars kill way more deer in our area than hunters.
But that 5,000 is just Colorado. Add in MT, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming and it adds up per year.
Now that people are moving to more rural areas they will need jobs. Extracting natural resources is what has/will occur as we continue to breed like viagra addicted rabbits ;)
I would rather have some drilling rigs out in the country rather than thousands of 2-10 acre log homes. Oh well there is still kamchatka that we can enjoy. Even Alaska is becoming californianized...
Immer you're spending too much time on Maughan's anti-hunting hate site! If willam huard, jon or timz goes ballistic and kills a wolf hunter I honestly believe there is enough hate related comments and discussions on that site that you and the rest of the gang could be brought up on hate crimes!
Oh lets see now, this where I get called a racist.
The surprising deal is that the Feds and the local sheriff are now actually arresting people in the discovery process. Of course, the sheriff has only one deputy in some of those remote, rural counties, since there is no longer timber cut and receipts shared with the county. If the Feds are not going to patrol their vast lands, don't expect a sheriff and one deputy to do it for them. No tax base, and now no revenue sharing for grazing, mining, timber, and commercial road use.
So expect poaching and Mexicans living off the land on their vast and extensive dope grow areas. The deal in the USFS Use Book of a hundred years ago said USFS workers had to be fit and able to work by themselves for long periods, and accomplish tasks without supervision. That was before ADA and EEO. Now they have to hire a complement of people who can't get off a sidewalk to administer wildlands. Go figure. And, since there is no timber cutting, and thus no income, the whole of what the land management agencies have to work with is budgeted by urban poofs who are now charged with cutting Federal spending. No thought to Federal income outside of some huckster deal to tax the capital gains and deferred income folks. Good luck.
In a microcosm of the insanity that rules the land management agencies, the USFWS Basket Slough unit is "recovering" an oak savannah. The threat is that without Indian burning for 150 years, douglas fir trees have taken over the site and were close to shading out the whole of the oak savannah and killing 500 year old oak trees there due to Indian acorn cooking ovens of past centuries. Annual Indian burning kept the fir at bay, and kept the oaks free of parasites and disease. The reward was the understory strawberries, camas, and tarweed fields interspersed with savannha white Garry oaks, which are not unlike the Federal caretakers of today. Not real tall, pretty wide, and covering most of a front seat. The once in a decade big acorn crops were increased by having more trees, and with the attendant vegetation, the INdians were able to eke out a pretty good and local living. That all changed with European conquering, and the laws of metes and bounds. So the oak stands were and are leaving in great acreages. It is wonderful the USFWS is attempting to save some.
But, and the old hook tender told me anything before "but" was to be ignored. But, the USFWS hired a helicopter logging outfit to cut and fly the doug fir trees to a field where they were decked, tree length. Maybe 15 miles from a local sawmill. Now those trees are being hauled, at great expense, over 100 miles to the City of Portland Bull Run Watershed, all USFS property on the west slopes of Mt. Hood, where, above a fish stopping dam, on Bull Run River, where no salmon have had access for over 100 years, those very same logs are being placed in the Bull Run River "to provide fish habitat enhancement."
The Bull Run was once part of the timber sale lands, but activists got that stopped thirty years ago. So that old growth forest, with trees right to the stream edge, is getting introduced, exotic, out of the watershed, "coarse woody debris" placed for fish enhancement in a stream with no access from the sea, and no fishing pressure at all, in the drinking water of a subscriber base of maybe a million people. No thought to selling those logs locally, and using the money to improve the USFWS refuge, wholly created out of condemned farmland, taken legally but by force of the US Govt and the guns that back it, from private farmers. The land has been sculpted and massaged, and ephemeral ponds and lakes created from winter runoff, and crops planted to feed Canadian Geese of seven different subspecies, one of which is "endangered" by the 1964 Alaska Earthquake and land subsidence and uplifting, which allowed predators land access to their nesting grounds. Of course, there is a Native and local hunt of the geese in Alaska, and only when they get to Oregon are they ESA species of concern, and totally protected. We are up to our collective asses in wintering geese, which produce prodigious amounts of goose poop laced with EColi and other niceties of excretion. So that money that could have been gained from selling the trees to a sawmill and using it to raise feed to keep the geese on their intended refuge, was instead pissed away on some pie in the sky environmental project at great expense that goes against all the phyto sanitary rules of watershed protection. But those projects, lipstick on a pig as it were, make urban armchair idiots swoon and feel good about themselves. And extrapolate that experience across the landscape of government land management, there is no wonder that this country is broke, rudderless, and foundering in the world because IT IS RUN BY PEOPLE WITHOUT A LICK OF COMMON SENSE. The same people that will tell you how a wildfire is "good" for the ecosystem, but in the next breath tell how bad slash burning is, or how bad field burning is. The lack of intellectual understanding that when you burn vegetation, the results are the same in the watershed, the airshed, and to indigenous plants and animals. If one is good, then so must the other. Or vice versa. The old "you can't have it both ways" deal does not work because we are in the throes of doing whatever the mandatory union dues in government employment buys from the Congress. And, any log that can be kept out of a sawmill is a good thing.
In the same vein as "forest fires are good", I guess we should be saying about Irene, "hurricanes are good because they end droughts, flush streams, wash streets, and move beach sand and renew the environment." On that note, I will retire to watch a baseball game on the West Coast, and celebrate the end to whatever drought was brought about by global warming, and the new arrangement of beach sand and the vegetation pruning on the East Coast. I feel good all over about this fortunate event. The reservoirs are being replenished. Nutrition is being swept to sea to feed the fish. And a whole lot of heat was taken out of the seawater along the Eastern Seaboard. Those people should be dancing in the streets today, and I hope looking out for fallen power lines.
As far as the attempt to marginalize hunting and hunters with the typical broad brush that so many here love to use. The comment about how every hunter using factory ammo is a novice and a wounder of game, is a perfect example. Generally speaking, factory ammo is both consistent and accurate when the proper loads are chosen. But, it is far easier to make invalid claims about something you obviously know little about than to get to the root of any problem.
When one considers the issues we currently have concerning wildlife, one must evaluate past and current data. As far as the wildlife declining in the RMW, we only have one new piece of the puzzle, trying to place the blame on issues that have ALWAYS existed is absurd and simply reek of agendaism [sic].
We have ignored valid wildlife management science of the last 90 years in favor of the new predator worship and natural balance faux science. Now that we see it failing, those who have perpetuated it and those whom are making money off of it, start rolling out the lame excuses instead of just admitting it is a failure.
To be very honest, I truly think poaching is less of a problem now than in the past. We are more than likely catching more due to improved technology and the simple fact that more people 'witnesses' and wardens are in the woods than ever before. When one is driven to twist data, one see's why they attempt to ignore those facts for the chance to push their goal.
You are stretching to the snapping point. My comment was about the summative impact of poaching. It had absolutely nothing to do with anti-hunting.
Then you go on a rant about drunk driving in Wyoming and how Wyoming has more problems than poaching...and that hunters should be allowed to police their own ranks.
But then again, you once wrote about convicted poacher William Hayward,
"reality22 said: Monday, February 28, 2011
As far as I am concerned, William Hayward is a civlian wolf population control manager. Let me know where I can send my support dollars! Poacher is a term to be used for people taking game against the will of the majority of the local people!"
A poacher is one who takes fish or game illegally. Not your trumped up view of what poaching is and isn't.
You simply cannot be taken seriously.
Laws have since been strengthened. Poachers now risk losing all their guns, toys , vehicles, and hunting privileges in 16 other states , besides paying very high restitutions for animals taken illegally. That trophy bull elk could cost an additional $ 12,500.
The simple truth is, nobody knows the extent of poaching. The perps cover their tracks well, and there are too few data points in the court system to draw out any long projections. You have to go with anecdotal evidence, and that is always a crap shoot. My own feeling , using several vectors of evidence from the last 40 years, is poaching is very widespread , has been, and will likely stay prevalent, because human nature has not been gaining the requisite wisdom at any visible pace. Poaching is a vile trait and has not yet been eradicated in the American psyche. In some sectors it may in fact be increasing. ( I'm thinking those of anti-government Aryan/Anarchists s and Tea Party persuasions when I say this. They have guns and like meat, and horn stew I would surmise. ) I know way too many poachers.
I somewha dispute the printed claim that illegal takes by poachers approaches the legal harvest , but I will not dispute the magnitude of the poaching problem , after all other mortality factors are considered. Poaching is endemic. We can argue about the numbers but not the effects.
Regardless of Reality22's hairball invectives above , the tangential tirades, and his trademark ridiculous logic, the point about strong poaching laws is to bolster DETERENCE. It's all you can do, really. Jack up penalties to the point the poacher will think twice about stealing the public's resources. Because those same Game Wardens who say they are lucky to even hear about a few percent of violations will also tell you they almost have to catch the perp in the act to have a case. I'm always glad when they do .
We do love it when the egregious idiots publish the photos of their illegal takes online for bragging rights, and get hammered flat for it. If only internet Trolls could be likewise douched and exposed for their insolent daffiness , R22....
This does not lead me to think that poaching is not being addressed by the courts. Also, it says that unscrupulous outfitters are being tracked all the time, and not all their clients are rubes from the city who think they are buying legitimate tags. There is probably a bus load of Federal agents right now, who are hunting with bad outfitters, gathering evidence and more prosecutions are in the offing.
And the guy who shoots the odd doe or summer buck to feed his family, he will take a few animals, and I just hope he doesn't waste any of the meat. They are the majority of poachers. And have been, for the very same reasons, for centuries. Poaching in the Old World was sticking it to the King or the Prince, the landed gentry. The price for being caught was about the same as for bank robbery. An age old contest of wills and means. Only we used to not have the State as royalty and entitled in the US. Maybe that has changed some. You know, the Chicago hedge fund manager with the huge ranch syndrome, and the locals sneaking in and removing an elk or two from the premisses in the dark, just to take that jab at the landed gentry. The smart ranch owners open their places up to the locals for cow season. That keeps the gender ratios in line with carrying capacity, and more bulls around for the land owner's guests and special people.
Actual common sense here........
If they don't hear about them, and there is no evidence, how do they know they exists?
- Obviously they don't. They may assume, but we all know what that does now don't we.
And your obviously blatant, but failed attempt to paint the 'tea party' as poachers only further exposes your asinine assumptions.
I know many good little marxist would love nothing more than to ship off any suspected deviant (anyone whom disagrees with them) off to the gulag to be straightened out. But, at least for now, that isn't going to happen in this country.
You peeps on the left have no one to blame but yourselves for waking the silent majority.
Nice baseless rant though.....
There is plenty of evidence of poaching, just scant evidence of poachers. Too bad I can't post my photo collection of headless bull elk here, also minus the ivories, amid other forensics that don't turn up till the trail has gone cold .
The game wardens I grew up with would often look the other way if a guy was taking an extra deer or two to feed his family . Truth be told, he would likely help the guy . But that's not the kind of poacher we are talking about here.
I quit guiding when the last outfitter I worked for blatantly and shamelessly put his hunter on a particular trophy ram that he had to have credit for...except that hunter's tag was for three areas over. That particular outfitter was an outlaw thru and thru, and his top guide the most prolific poacher I ever knew. I almost married his sister so I kept my mouth shut. My case is not unique by any means. Renegade outfitters and parttime guides-fulltime mountain trash " Long Season" poachers were the norm around here. That was in the high country . When I tended bar for two years in Meeteetse WY I heard enough poaching tales from the low country to fill another volume. All hearsay , but more than credible .
The last two Tea Party rallies I attended here in Cody in the city park were well populated with known/suspected game violators. QED.
How many Marxists do you personally know, Barry ? Interesting. You are either delusional about that whilst groping for aspersions to hurl back , or if in fact you do know practicing Marxists well enough to speak for them it sends up a red flag with your face on it, like Che Guevara. Are you or are you not also the troll known as Reality 22 , because both of you have gone ga-ga here of late. Certifiably so. The writing style is too similar, if you can call that writing and not florid words on fire without structure.
Poaching is indeed a widespread problem in my corner of the world. Just no smoking guns to prosecute.
I do not partake in illegal actions of any kind. Perhaps it is that base in which I feel this is a non-issue drudged up by those whom perhaps have more personal involvement than I. Makes me wonder as I wouldn't put it past many of those pounding on this unprovable claim to do such a thing to try and paint their opposition as the guilty.
And again....either provide the evidence or admit you have no real ability to prove that in which you claim.
And No, I do not post under any other name at this site. I know you would love to think I do, but I do not. That is also another action that those who do it love to blame others of the same action, right codycoyote?
And marxist's are all around us Cody, they have just presented themselves as 'progressives', all disciples of the same failed collective mentality. If you actually knew the historical foundation of your very own beliefs, you would perhaps understand you yourself fit that description. Most of the 'green' engine follow that belief, it was created out of it, for the very purpose we now see.
Green on the outside, red in the middle. Just like a watermelon.
"known/suspected" are these people not innocent until proven guilty Cody? Or are you also willing to convict them without cause and evidence. And painting a few individuals as the whole of any group is a completely failed position. It would be no different than I stating that all democrats are terrorist bombers for simply belonging to the same party as Bill Ayres, which I do not.
Have you become a paladin for a new cause? What does drunk driving have to do with poaching? If Wyoming has a drunk driving problem they need to deal with it with stiff laws and enforce them.
Get caught, lose your license for a year and your vehicle is impounded. Kill somebody, you go to jail for manslaughter. Get caught a second time and your vehicle is confiscated and lose your driving privileges in the state for life.
I would imagine most of those in the Cowboy state have made it through enough school that they can read and their cognitive abilities would enable them to discern between right and wrong.
If Wyoming had 6100 drunk driving citations in 2007 alone, it sounds as though drunk driving is a much greater concern than the comparatively small number of wolf incidents in the state. Perhaps Wyoming should apply the same vigor toward drunk driving that they have with their current wolf plan if implemented.
As for Ralph's blog, and the individuals you mentioned, there are many hunters who post on that site. Two of the individuals you mentioned are simply anti-predator hunting. I'd also hazard a guess, to bring my thread back toward the topic of this article, that the chances that you have sided with someone on the many sites on which you write who has poached a wolf, is infinitely greater than the chance the individuals you brought up committing any act of violence toward a wolf hunter.
Then post your e-mail address here so I can send you some of the most recent pictures of headless bull elk , given me last March by my neighbor, a retired agency ecologist , who was out scoutwalking for wolves and possible den sites. What he found instead were poached elk and many violations of elk harassment by antler scabbers, who to my mind are just as bad as poachers.
But the topic is poaching , not nefarious antler buccaneers and Wyoming's deplorable DUI situation , which bad as it might be looks positively sterling next to Montana's...
...why do I even bother responding to blathering trolls. Strike the above.
Maybe Western Watershed or Earth Justice should ante up to help pay for more poaching deterrent programs. One thing I do know is that Whitetails Unlimited (based in Wisconsin) had an anti poaching program related to that very subject in whitetail country over the years. I sure others hunting groups have done the same. The left/liberals/Democrats(lately) and obstructionalist environmental groups needs to quit being the social leeches ......but that's who they are!
ps did we not see an article within the last year or so of some wolf huggers getting pinched for cutting off and taking wolf kill antlers out of Yellowstone?
We need a New Rule of web degeneracy : Everything wrong in outdoor America from Hurricane Irene to wildfires in the West to earthquakes in Virginia and grizzly bears killing tourists in Yellowstone , ad infinitum ad absurdum, is somehow the fault of anti-hunting leftie liberal socialist democrats and obstructionalist (?) enviro groups . Lefties are lepers, or something like that.
Reality22 says as much . But he don't get the New Rule named after him till he tells us who he is , so we have a proper name . Then he , too, can be famous , like Godwin.
I'm checking out of this thread before I get Godwinned.
I certainly grasp you point, however the article was about poaching. I made a comment about the summative value of poaching in the NRM states. Now all of a sudden you are the great social crusader. Sure the problems of Wyoming need be addressed, and if it is drunk driving, then make it known if you drive when drunk it's the last time you drive, and follow through with it. Problem solved.
You were quoted as willing to support a poacher, which refutes any ethical character that you might have. And I reinforce that if Wyoming put the effort against drunk driving that they have against wolves, which cause far less harm than the legion of drunks within the state, then problem solved.
As for the remainder of your lint, you are once again venturing into the programmed world of psycho-babble and paranoia.
You forgot the latest descriptive "leeches" in your demeaning rant may turn out to be the best one word to describe your ilk in years!
I've also told you that until the law suits end this will be something your kind will need to contend with.... we still are dealing with a "constitutional" law suit for Northern Rockies & in the Great Lakes a "multi species" law suit is in the works! Get use to it pal!
then
We have "little Barry Coe" quantitating on what constitutes a common sense or a logical point of view while at the same time exhibiting, at best, a mere pedestrian grasp of the English language.
I tell ya, you just can't make this stuff up.
There are many just and unjust laws in this nation. And although I am not specifically claiming that poaching laws would or should be nullified, the argument that they shouldn't be judged by the people is incorrect.
Just as we are seeing in other situations, the 'poaching' of a faux endangered animal becomes a question of the validity of the law itself and what those on the jury determine is acceptable.
Although most who have perpetuated the existence of these tyrannical laws, and those whom see themselves as above, and far superior to the peasants they feel they rule over, will deny the validity of jury nullification. Many will even go so far as to claim it is anarchy, even though it is actually a check on tyranny. It is still a very valid and necessary check for the people. And on that basis Reality has a very solid position in his thinking.
"strike the above", exactly what point did you make anyway?
When we boil down to the bones of this situation, we still find ourselves unable to quantify the claims of this article. It seems to be an exaggeration driven by agenda, and that agenda is exactly as I have laid out. You may not like it, you may not even realize the roots of many of your and the green agendas beliefs. But, that does not change the truth of it.
You may want to label me a troll, I would expect nothing less from you. But I suggest you take a long hard look at the creation of environmentalism and by whom that movement was created, and why. You will find names such as Adorno, Gramsci, Horkheimer and Marcuse. Study the Frankfort School philosophy and their goal, and perhaps then you will grasp the truth.
'All things in moderation', and there has been no moderation in any of the green movement, it has simply become "our way or the highway', with not a care given as to the impacts on anyone or anything, including rights and freedom. Attempting to take the high road while supporting such oppression is really quite arrogant.
Do you even see your own hypocrisy? While you are trying to claim eventually someone will roll out the 'nazi' term, you, yourself....yes YOU attempted to paint an entire political party as poachers simply because YOU disagree with them.
Get over yourself Dewey. Just because I may ask for solid proof of a claim that poaching is such an incredibly "plaguing" problem, that no one can seem to provide, I am the bad guy. I love it.
Parts of two quotes in the same post
"Enough said, & can let the hunting community police and try to keep poaching to the minimum it is and bring the poacher to justice."
"but just said told you numerous times I won't SSS.... and won't condemn one who does!"
Bit of a contradiction,eh?
Either you condemn the illegal take of fish and game, or not.
My breed/ilk? You know absolutely nothing about me except what you assume.
Find a new crusade.
Jury nullification is something that could happen in the years to come for a wolf "poaching" case. When the majority of the northern Wisconsin counties all pass resolutions against the wolf and increasing the wolf plan goals, or Counties like Idaho county in Idaho declare a "disaster" one has to think a jury from those areas could easily revolt.