Major Deer Poaching Crackdown Results In Nearly 300 Charges
The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced that "a major initiative to crack down on illegal deer hunting from the Hudson Valley to the Canadian border" has led to nearly 300 charges against 107 individuals in just six weeks. Dubbed “Operation Jackhammer,” Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) focused on deer jacking, the illegal practice of killing deer at night by shining a spotlight on the animals feeding in fields to “freeze” them long enough to shoot them.
According to DEC spokesperson Yancey Roy, this fall's six-week long enforcement operation was "the largest coordinated anti-deer jacking initiative in the state’s history" and included more than 100 Forest Rangers from the Hudson Valley, Capitol Region, the Catskills and the Adirondacks. Rangers targeted rural locations, mostly in the weeks before deer season opened when DEC tends to field more complaints about deer jacking.
In all, DEC officers charged 107 individuals with 187 misdemeanors and 87 violations. This included 27 instances of hunters killing deer at night while using a spotlight or other artificial light and 48 instances where a hunter was caught using a light but had yet to kill a deer. Typically, other related charges were filed in these instances, such as carrying a loaded gun in a vehicle, hunting after hours and firing a gun within 500 feet of a house.
In the Adirondack Park and surrounding North Country there were 102 misdemeanors and 37 violations. The Capital Region and northern Catskills accounted for 71 misdemeanors and 46 violations, and in the southern Catksills and Lower and Mid-Hudson Valley there were 14 misdemeanors and four violations.
Approximately 40 guns were confiscated and 42 illegally-taken deer recovered.
“Taking of Deer with the Aid of an Artificial Light” is a misdemeanor punishable by a
fine of $250 to $2,000 and/or incarceration for up to one year, as well as possible revocation of hunting privileges for up to five years.
“Operating an Artificial Light on Lands Inhabited by Deer While Possessing a Firearm” is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $200 to $1,000 and/or incarceration for up to 90 days.
Violations are punishable by a fine of up to $250 and/or incarceration of up to 15 days.
9 Comments:
This is amazing. The part of the Adirondacks we hunt is devoid of deer. They must be jacking somewhere else! Glad to see them crack down. No real sportsman supports this kind of activity.
One thing I don't understand.... It says here that “Operating an Artificial Light on Lands Inhabited by Deer While Possessing a Firearm” is a misdemeanor. Yet this below is from the DEC website under furbearer hunting regulations:
Furbearer Hunting at Night
You may hunt furbearers at night, with or without a light, as follows:
* Use any handgun or bow.
* Use a shotgun loaded with shot (any size).
* Use a rifle chambered in any cartridge, except that you may not possess a center-fire rifle afield, during the day or night, during any open season for deer in areas restricted to using a shotgun only for deer.
The ADKS is all open to rifle hunting so the last one doesn't apply.
Which one is right? If you can't use a light at night in areas inhabited by deer (all of NYS) then what is with this rule that says you can?
I think someone was jacking deer near our cabin a few weekends ago. We heard gunshots at midnight and later on heard either pickup trucks or ATVs drive down the road by our property. Hope they got caught!
Jeesh, I didn't realize the practice was so widespread that they'd be able to arrest this many individuals (which are probably only a fraction of the people who do it).
John Burroughs had a great time jack-lighting deer here in 1863 and wrote, "This method of taking deer is very novel and strange" in his essay "The Adirondacks." You can find it in the anthology Wake Robin on Google books.
Anonymous at 1:12 pm,
I asked DEC spokesperson David Winchell to clarify and here was his response:
John,
The full charge reads "Operating an Artificial Light on Lands Inhabited
by Deer While in a Motor Vehicle and Possessing a Firearm". The
difference with this regulation and the regulation your reader
referenced is that the violators are in a motor vehicle. The trapping
regulation allows them to pursue furbearers, however, there are other
laws and regulations prohibiting the use of artificial light to pursue deer - whether in a vehicle or not.
David W
Here's a related legal issue that was addressed in the latest issue of The Conservationist:
Q: If I shoot a deer while I'm hunting but can't locate it right away, can I track the wounded animal after dark? Are there any restrictions on the type of light I can use?
A: Yes, you may go out after legal hunting hours to look for a wounded deer. You may use any size or type of light you wish, however you may not bring along any firearm or long bow as that would be a violation of Environmental Conservation Law.
I think this is the way the law has to be written to avoid opening a gaping loophole, but this is a circumstance where I think the morally right thing to do conflicts with what the legal thing to do is.
I think the odds of locating a wounded deer that needs to be shot from a distance are fairly low - after all, if it's still moving that much, it would be hard to know that you got the right deer. Nothing in the regs keeps you from carrying your knife.
It seems to me that the way the regs are written are the only way to, as you've said, open a huge loophole.
Getting into hand-to-hoof (and possibly antler) combat with a wounded deer definitely is a dangerous thing to do. I'm surprised the Q&A in The Conservationist didn't recommend waiting until morning.
Yeah true enough.
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