Is it just me or are poaching consequences just a slap on the wrist?

[repins05]

Keep seeing large scale poaching cases making the news, yet it seems like the penalties are often a slap on the wrist. It's frustrating to see people who intentionally break wildlife laws face consequences that don't seem to match the damage done to our wildlife and hunting heritage. Meaningful penalties could go a long way toward protecting the resource for everyone who follow the rules.

 

[Aussie Dan]

I've been saying that here in Australia for 25 years.
First offence- big fine

Second offence- massive fine, banned from all fishing/hunting for 2 years.
If they get caught during the ban they do 6-12 months jail.

Third offence- sell off the vehicle they got caught in, all their hunting/fishing gear and a life ban.
If they get caught while banned 3-5 years jail.

I have zero sympathy for worthless d!cks who can't follow the law.

**i applied for a job with our equivalent to your fish and game department, said exactly as I said above and was told my views are too extreme.
They also didn't appreciate my suggestion of making bag and size limit information pamphlets in multiple languages to avoid the "me no speak da english" types. Apparently that implied racial bias ‍♂

 

[MallardSX2]

Watching these videos will make you want to vomit. People are blatantly nationwide and I have been saying it for years that your average person simply doesn't care because the fines arnt that bad and the odds of getting caught are super low.

Arrest Cam Fish and Wildlife

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[HandgunHTR]

I am going to preface this with my views that people who blatantly ignore wildlife laws should be punished.

However, I am going to provide, what I believe may be an unpopular opinion. I personally don't want to see punishments for wildlife crimes getting anywhere near the punishments for crimes perpetrated towards human beings. There are two reasons for my opinion.
1. Increasing the penalties for wildlife crimes will increase the actual power that wildlife law enforcement has. Currently wildlife law enforcement personnel need much less probable cause to enter and search private property than "regular" law enforcement. This is offset by the fact that if they catch someone in the commission of a wildlife crime, the punishments are less severe. If they were equal to "regular" crimes, you have now shifted the power dynamic significantly in favor of wildlife law enforcement. I will leave it to you all to follow that logic thread to its inevitable conclusion.
2. Having wildlife crime punishments close to or equal to crimes committed against humans feeds the anti-hunter agenda. If we hunters and the administrations who govern our wildlife increase punishments to the point where a crime against an elk, or deer are the same, or close to, say an armed robbery, how long do you think that it will take for the animal rights whackos and anti-hunters to latch on to that and use that to claim that if the punishments for the crimes are the same, then wildlife have the same social and moral value as a human life and should therefore be protected like a human life?

Again, I do believe that people who break wildlife laws should be punished to the full extent of the law. I just don't think that those punishments should be equal to the punishments laid out for crimes against humans. The separation needs to stay obvious.

 

[2ski]

I am going to preface this with my views that people who blatantly ignore wildlife laws should be punished.

However, I am going to provide, what I believe may be an unpopular opinion. I personally don't want to see punishments for wildlife crimes getting anywhere near the punishments for crimes perpetrated towards human beings. There are two reasons for my opinion.
1. Increasing the penalties for wildlife crimes will increase the actual power that wildlife law enforcement has. Currently wildlife law enforcement personnel need much less probable cause to enter and search private property than "regular" law enforcement. This is offset by the fact that if they catch someone in the commission of a wildlife crime, the punishments are less severe. If they were equal to "regular" crimes, you have now shifted the power dynamic significantly in favor of wildlife law enforcement. I will leave it to you all to follow that logic thread to its inevitable conclusion.
2. Having wildlife crime punishments close to or equal to crimes committed against humans feeds the anti-hunter agenda. If we hunters and the administrations who govern our wildlife increase punishments to the point where a crime against an elk, or deer are the same, or close to, say an armed robbery, how long do you think that it will take for the animal rights whackos and anti-hunters to latch on to that and use that to claim that if the punishments for the crimes are the same, then wildlife have the same social and moral value as a human life and should therefore be protected like a human life?

Again, I do believe that people who break wildlife laws should be punished to the full extent of the law. I just don't think that those punishments should be equal to the punishments laid out for crimes against humans. The separation needs to stay obvious.

I've wanted to say something similar for a while every time one of these threads comes up. In this day and age everyone wants to be overly offended, make things way bigger, and make punishment harsher. When in reality we have a constitution that protects us against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. So the reality is that while we as hunters may be outraged at someone poaching a trophy or shooting too many animals, is that really deserving of the punishment some would suggest? The first two are the amendments that are focused on the most, but that 8th amendment is important too.

 

[AHayes111]

I am going to preface this with my views that people who blatantly ignore wildlife laws should be punished.

However, I am going to provide, what I believe may be an unpopular opinion. I personally don't want to see punishments for wildlife crimes getting anywhere near the punishments for crimes perpetrated towards human beings. There are two reasons for my opinion.
1. Increasing the penalties for wildlife crimes will increase the actual power that wildlife law enforcement has. Currently wildlife law enforcement personnel need much less probable cause to enter and search private property than "regular" law enforcement. This is offset by the fact that if they catch someone in the commission of a wildlife crime, the punishments are less severe. If they were equal to "regular" crimes, you have now shifted the power dynamic significantly in favor of wildlife law enforcement. I will leave it to you all to follow that logic thread to its inevitable conclusion.
2. Having wildlife crime punishments close to or equal to crimes committed against humans feeds the anti-hunter agenda. If we hunters and the administrations who govern our wildlife increase punishments to the point where a crime against an elk, or deer are the same, or close to, say an armed robbery, how long do you think that it will take for the animal rights whackos and anti-hunters to latch on to that and use that to claim that if the punishments for the crimes are the same, then wildlife have the same social and moral value as a human life and should therefore be protected like a human life?

Again, I do believe that people who break wildlife laws should be punished to the full extent of the law. I just don't think that those punishments should be equal to the punishments laid out for crimes against humans. The separation needs to stay obvious.

Have to disagree. Poaching is a crime against humanity. When someone poaches a buck they are stealing that buck from the other humans that would have enjoyed the benefits of the buck. With today's values, when someone poaches a quality buck they are committing a felony. Poaching fines need to reflect the value of what the poacher is stealing from other humans. The fines are too low.

 

[Maverick1]

Have to disagree. Poaching is a crime against humanity. When someone poaches a buck they are stealing that buck from the other humans that would have enjoyed the benefits of the buck. With today's values, when someone poaches a quality buck they are committing a felony. Poaching fines need to reflect the value of what the poacher is stealing from other humans. The fines are too low.

Who “owns” the buck?

 

[Chris in TN]

I am going to preface this with my views that people who blatantly ignore wildlife laws should be punished.

However, I am going to provide, what I believe may be an unpopular opinion. I personally don't want to see punishments for wildlife crimes getting anywhere near the punishments for crimes perpetrated towards human beings. There are two reasons for my opinion.
1. Increasing the penalties for wildlife crimes will increase the actual power that wildlife law enforcement has. Currently wildlife law enforcement personnel need much less probable cause to enter and search private property than "regular" law enforcement. This is offset by the fact that if they catch someone in the commission of a wildlife crime, the punishments are less severe. If they were equal to "regular" crimes, you have now shifted the power dynamic significantly in favor of wildlife law enforcement. I will leave it to you all to follow that logic thread to its inevitable conclusion.
2. Having wildlife crime punishments close to or equal to crimes committed against humans feeds the anti-hunter agenda. If we hunters and the administrations who govern our wildlife increase punishments to the point where a crime against an elk, or deer are the same, or close to, say an armed robbery, how long do you think that it will take for the animal rights whackos and anti-hunters to latch on to that and use that to claim that if the punishments for the crimes are the same, then wildlife have the same social and moral value as a human life and should therefore be protected like a human life?

Again, I do believe that people who break wildlife laws should be punished to the full extent of the law. I just don't think that those punishments should be equal to the punishments laid out for crimes against humans. The separation needs to stay obvious.

Agreed.

I'll pretend to care that a poacher got off lightly, after we get more serious about things like robbery, rape, murder, and so on. I'll go further and say that obsessing over what people do to lesser animals, when we live in a culture that turns a blind eye to direct property crimes and crimes against persons (rape/murder/assault) on a regular basis, is a huge red flag to me - such people have grossly messed up priorities and should consider worrying the most about what matters the most.

 

[Skers99]

Make it a felony so they can’t own a gun

 

[Laramie]

Punishment for crime in general is light in most cases. Poaching Punishment is very judge dependant.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

People are free to agree or disagree with the laws on the books, but the idea that killing a deer illegally is a “crime against humanity” is patently absurd and hyperbolic. A “crime against humanity” is genocide, mass rape, ethnic cleansing, the deliberate destruction of culturally significant things, etc. To argue that even every citizen in a county, much less all the people in the world, is harmed by someone else poaching is absurd. Killing an elk is not the equivalent of dynamiting Stonehenge or mass extermination of people.

If you want to live in a medieval or pre-modern world where poaching the king’s or landowners’ deer is a hanging offense (because that’s what a felony is historically), I don’t know what to say. Because that’s not a world in which I want to live. And it flies in the face of common sense and the 8th Amendment.

Oh, and by the way, in Virginia, you can, and people do, lose guns, trucks, boats, and other assets used to facilitate wildlife violations. They don’t have to do it very often to get reasonable compliance with the law from most people (or at least not flagrant and open violations). But when Jim Bob loses his truck, his gun, and his legal hunting rights for poaching on private property, it sends a message. And breeds a ton of hatred if people figure out who reported him.

Killing an animal illegally is a malum prohibitum offense, not a malum in se offense. In plain English, it’s illegal because we say it is wrong to do, not because it is inherently evil (e.g., murder, rape, etc.).

 

[Pulleye16]

A big part is also resources needed to gather evidence and prosecute these folks. Most violators of wildlife crimes are self-reporting (self-admitting), meaning they voluntarily admitted to said crime. This happens either by a mistake and the offender calls and self reports, or a warden presses hard and they eventually cave. Hardly ever do the wardens have enough evidence to prosecute on. Both these scenarios can be costly for the courts, and tax payer, should they decide to fight it in court. The prosecutors want these over and done quickly...otherwise they'll probably get thrown out.

 

[7RemMag]

*takes seat…grabs popcorn* This one oughtta be good.

Firstly, and this will surely be controversial-not every case where an animal is killed illegally is “poaching” in my opinion. At the very least, there are significantly varying degrees of the offense.

The people that are poaching in the context of this post are committing a crime that most of us don’t commit not because the law says not to do it, but because we view it as immoral. An individual who is halted from committing a poaching offense like this because the law says not to is a morally weak person. That is a problem that no person, nor any amount of legislation is ever going to fix. Unfortunately, there are always going to be people like that.

That said, I certainly see a trend in these cases of pretty weak penalties. I’m not sure that I want to see them increased though. “Felony” is a term that should really only be used to describe a crime against other people, typically involving physical harm to another person. Most of those individuals belong under 6 feet of dirt-and quite promptly. I will never advocate for poaching offenses to be considered a felony.