JNRBRONC
Well-Known Member
http://thegazette.com/2011/01/01/deer-poachers-skirt-law-for-money-bragging-rights/
The criminal profile of deer poachers has changed from a boozy scofflaw looking for free meat and thrills to a greedy self-aggrandizer with an antler affinity bordering on addiction.
“A lot of people today — whether it’s collectors willing to pay big money for them or the poachers taking risks to get them — are just addicted to big antlers,” said Mark Sedlmayr, a Department of Natural Resources law enforcement supervisor in southwest Iowa.
To illustrate his point, Sedlmayr recalled one case in which a busted perpetrator was handing over illegally taken antlers to a DNR officer. “He sort of fondled each set as he told exactly when, where and how he got it,” Sedlmayr said.
DNR conservation officers across the state say deer poachings are keeping them busy this year.
“The underground antler trade is big,” with some ill-gotten racks fetching five-figure prices, Sedlmayr said.
Asked why someone might pay thousands of dollars for a trophy rack harvested illegally by someone else, Jennifer Lancaster, the DNR law enforcement supervisor in northeast Iowa, said: “Some people just really like antlers and don’t care how they come by them.”
Lancaster said bragging rights often motivate poachers who are not in it for the money.
“They try to pass off a poached buck as a legitimate trophy to impress their friends,” she said.
Sedlmayr said he is particularly galled by poachers who cut off a buck’s antlers and leave the carcass to rot — a practice he calls “shooting deer and twisting heads.”
“They are not shooting them for the meat,” he said.
Lancaster said DNR officers have encountered a rash of non-resident poachings. Iowa’s reputation as the home of trophy whitetail bucks has spurred the influx, said Sedlmayr, a 26-year DNR employee.
“You watch the Outdoor Channel on cable TV, and it seems like half the shows are about Iowa whitetails,” he said.
While the DNR welcomes the publicity for the state’s excellent deer hunting, “it also draws poachers to Iowa,” Sedlmayr said.
Several of the DNR’s recent poaching busts have involved non-residents who legally procured Iowa antlerless tags, which are easy to get, and used them as a pretext to hunt deer in Iowa while poaching bucks for which they had no valid license.
“Non-residents come here with doe tags, but they want to kill bucks. They are not here to help us control our deer population,” Sedlmayr said.
DNR deer biologist Tom Litchfield confirmed that a low percentage of non-resident antlerless tags are ever filled.
In once recent case, in which three Louisiana men were charged with multiple deer poachings, an Iowa resident was accused of purchasing tags from other Iowa resident hunters for use by the non-residents. “They were paying $125 for those any-sex tags,” Sedlmayr said.
The state charges $426 for a non-resident ant-sex tag, $28.50 for resident.
Litchfield said some non-resident archery hunters have to apply for four years before receiving an any-sex Iowa license but said that increasing the quota also would decrease access for Iowa hunters.
Besides, he said, “the fact that people are stealing something is no justification for giving them what they are stealing.”
DNR conservation officer Dan Pauley, who works in western Iowa, said deer poaching cases have occupied almost all his time this year.
With Iowa’s pheasant population in free fall, legitimate hunters and poachers are concentrating more on deer, Pauley said.
“I don’t know if poaching is on the increase, but we are getting a lot more tips from the public about it,” he said.
Those tips have been instrumental in bringing poachers to justice, Sedlmayr said.
Catching poachers is difficult, he said, because they operate in remote locations, often under cover of darkness and their trail is often cold by the time conservation officers receive a tip.
Iowa does not have specialized poaching investigators like some other states do. Conservation officers, working for the most part in two-county territories, rely heavily on long hours of surveillance and other standard detective techniques to make their cases, Sedlmayr said.
The criminal profile of deer poachers has changed from a boozy scofflaw looking for free meat and thrills to a greedy self-aggrandizer with an antler affinity bordering on addiction.
“A lot of people today — whether it’s collectors willing to pay big money for them or the poachers taking risks to get them — are just addicted to big antlers,” said Mark Sedlmayr, a Department of Natural Resources law enforcement supervisor in southwest Iowa.
To illustrate his point, Sedlmayr recalled one case in which a busted perpetrator was handing over illegally taken antlers to a DNR officer. “He sort of fondled each set as he told exactly when, where and how he got it,” Sedlmayr said.
DNR conservation officers across the state say deer poachings are keeping them busy this year.
“The underground antler trade is big,” with some ill-gotten racks fetching five-figure prices, Sedlmayr said.
Asked why someone might pay thousands of dollars for a trophy rack harvested illegally by someone else, Jennifer Lancaster, the DNR law enforcement supervisor in northeast Iowa, said: “Some people just really like antlers and don’t care how they come by them.”
Lancaster said bragging rights often motivate poachers who are not in it for the money.
“They try to pass off a poached buck as a legitimate trophy to impress their friends,” she said.
Sedlmayr said he is particularly galled by poachers who cut off a buck’s antlers and leave the carcass to rot — a practice he calls “shooting deer and twisting heads.”
“They are not shooting them for the meat,” he said.
Lancaster said DNR officers have encountered a rash of non-resident poachings. Iowa’s reputation as the home of trophy whitetail bucks has spurred the influx, said Sedlmayr, a 26-year DNR employee.
“You watch the Outdoor Channel on cable TV, and it seems like half the shows are about Iowa whitetails,” he said.
While the DNR welcomes the publicity for the state’s excellent deer hunting, “it also draws poachers to Iowa,” Sedlmayr said.
Several of the DNR’s recent poaching busts have involved non-residents who legally procured Iowa antlerless tags, which are easy to get, and used them as a pretext to hunt deer in Iowa while poaching bucks for which they had no valid license.
“Non-residents come here with doe tags, but they want to kill bucks. They are not here to help us control our deer population,” Sedlmayr said.
DNR deer biologist Tom Litchfield confirmed that a low percentage of non-resident antlerless tags are ever filled.
In once recent case, in which three Louisiana men were charged with multiple deer poachings, an Iowa resident was accused of purchasing tags from other Iowa resident hunters for use by the non-residents. “They were paying $125 for those any-sex tags,” Sedlmayr said.
The state charges $426 for a non-resident ant-sex tag, $28.50 for resident.
Litchfield said some non-resident archery hunters have to apply for four years before receiving an any-sex Iowa license but said that increasing the quota also would decrease access for Iowa hunters.
Besides, he said, “the fact that people are stealing something is no justification for giving them what they are stealing.”
DNR conservation officer Dan Pauley, who works in western Iowa, said deer poaching cases have occupied almost all his time this year.
With Iowa’s pheasant population in free fall, legitimate hunters and poachers are concentrating more on deer, Pauley said.
“I don’t know if poaching is on the increase, but we are getting a lot more tips from the public about it,” he said.
Those tips have been instrumental in bringing poachers to justice, Sedlmayr said.
Catching poachers is difficult, he said, because they operate in remote locations, often under cover of darkness and their trail is often cold by the time conservation officers receive a tip.
Iowa does not have specialized poaching investigators like some other states do. Conservation officers, working for the most part in two-county territories, rely heavily on long hours of surveillance and other standard detective techniques to make their cases, Sedlmayr said.
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