Fat-Assed ATV Riders Poach Griz in Idaho Panhandle

[Ten Bears]

1-P, do you want me to post a bunch of poaching articles and link related to remote locations and wilderness?

 

[BuzzH]

Ten beers,

You are full of crap.

Poachers dont pack in on horses and mules into the middle of the Bob Marshall or the Frank Church to poach.

Also, a good portion of the poaching that goes on for trophy species happens on winter range...when was the last time you've seen good winter range in a wilderness?

Poachers love roads, atv's, and being lazy.

Want me to post a bunch of articles related to poaching and easy access?

 

[cjcj]

So Buzz are you saying without easy access poaching will go away, or decline significantly?

 

[Ten Bears]

Post away BUZZ. Are you saying I can't find articles dealing with wilderness or remote country poaching?

 

[1_pointer]

TB- I didn't say it doesn't happen. I just said that your logic that more roads and higher hunter density decreasing poaching because of a higher risk of getting caught doesn't hold up well.

 

[cjcj]

How many scum sucking poachers will break the law in front of other hunters???? how many will do it at night with a spotlight?,,, how many will say oh no its posted "no entry' road closed, so we can`t "poach" here anymore?

 

[SageGhost]

there was a guy in idaho city that was poaching deer, elk, and bears while his wife was a sheriffs deputy for boise county... he was poaching along highway 21 milemarker 34 to be exact..

 

[SageGhost]

i forgot to mention he wasnt a fat assed atv rider.. he was on foot, with a bow !!!!!

 

[MattK]

I would think the die hard poachers will 1) never get caught 2) poach anywhere they please because they are good at it and 3) are hopefully a minority of people. The only way they get caught is by bragging to the wrong people. Sometimes they never get caught. That being said, there is a direct correlation of #'s of people in an area and the number of people who poach in an area. You can say per capita not as many but the fact remains there is a greater number of poached animals. In the Seeley Lake area one couple killed thousands of animals in a somewhat short period of time. Using silencers, spotlights and having an area of a lot of access. In that same area now, it would be much more difficult, if there are people driving behind the gates, it will be obvious they shouldn't be there. That may cause them to get caught for poaching as a secondary to driving in a gated area.

 

[SageGhost]

its common sense to know that poachers arent going to poach during hunting season when many hunters are out on the brush. I wonder how many animals get poached on private land compared to public land.... i noticed a few cases where the federal government fined people up to 25,000 per elk

 

[MattK]

SG- I would think quite a few but even more difficult to catch. People think because they own the land, they own the wild game. It is also a lot more difficult for leo's or other any other person to patrol these areas.

 

[SageGhost]

i agree matt.. when i lived in idaho city,id .. i would hear all the time about people poaching but it is kind of like robin hook up there, people poach and give the meat to poor families so no one wants to give out any info..

 

[Erik in AK]

So Buzz are you saying without easy access poaching will go away, or decline significantly?

If Buzz won't say it I will...Yes! Unequivocally, roads and the access they provide correlate directly to poaching.

Can we agree that poachers are cheaters? And that generally speaking
cheaters are attracted to means and methods that make cheating easy? And can we not also agree that poachers generally look to ply their "craft" in a manner that allows for a quick get-away, thus vehicles.

If we can agree that poachers favor vehicle aided poaching then is it not natural to assume that the natural habitat of vehicles are roadways? I mean when your looking for fish don't you usually go to the water?

I agree that poaching does in fact occur in the backcountry but not nearly to the extent it does in roaded areas.

Close roads in a way that cannot easily circumvented and you will absolutely curtail poaching in the area accessed by that road.

 

[cjcj]

Eric that the point i am trying to make..if you close the roads to the general public....you have to make sure that the poachers can`t use them ...How do you do that? as you said they [poachers] are cheaters. and in most cases i don`t see how they will stop cheating....[enforcment, jail time etc.] will help.

 

[ELKCHSR]

I would add only one small point.
Those guy's that make the news for really poaching the big animals aren't getting them from the side of the roads any where, they go in deep and pull them out of the back country.
I forgot to add a simple "LOL" for gunner

 

[cjcj]

You must be right Elkchser, i think i have heard a few guys say there arn`t any big "trophy" critters by the roads.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Not just 'the' roads...
Any and all roads...
I did read an article about a monster bull that was bow shot by a road last year, matter of fact, it is supposed to have broken some records.
I guess the guy was throwing rocks at it and it would't leave, so he pulled his bow out of the truck and the rest is history.
I only got a little of the story and the guy wouldn't let me have the article, so I can't share it.
But I would suspect some of our more learned scholars on the board could dig it up...

 

[Delw]

There is poaching that goes on in wilderness areas and quite a bit of it.,
Ive seen guys that had no elk in camp in the evening have one or 2 of them hanging first light, ive heard gun fire at night in wilderness areas

during bow season ive heard people fire guns in wilderness areas, and that morning they have deer or elk in there camp.

You can get away with alot in wilderness ares as far as poaching. not many people around to see someone doing it.

These wilderness areas I am refering to are uncompadries, whenumuchi and white river in colorado.

Ive seen guys do the same in the north kaibab as well and they were miles from the road.


Delw

 

[Ten Bears]

Matt, is this the couple you were talking about? MISSOULA, Mont. — Game wardens are looking for a Seeley Lake, Mont. area couple, described by state wildlife officials as "serial poachers" who are charged with 12 felony wildlife violations.

Dean and Renita Ruth live in a remote area of the Blackfoot Valley east of Seeley Lake. http://espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/news/2003/0102/1486255.html

Court records and testimony suggest poaching is an inter-generation pastime for the
Ruths, who allegedly kill wildlife by whatever illegal means available: using
silencers and spotlights; stalking after dark, out-of-season and on ATVs in
designated roadless areas; killing over the limit and without tags; and
encouraging their underage home-schooled children to hunt. http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/Week-of-Mon-20031103/009555.html

How about this one BUZZ:

David C. Cooper, 47, of Merriam, Kan.; Gary D. Henderson, 44, of Louisburg, Kan.; and Karl I. Sparks, 39, of Shawnee, Kan., were accused of poaching elk near the rugged La Garita Wilderness Area.

The three men pleaded guilty to multiple big-game hunting violations and have to pay fines totaling more than $45,000.

"These guys were engaged in intentional, premeditated poaching, and it happened over a long period of time," said Brian Bechaver, a Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) district wildlife manager who led a three-year investigation into the poaching case.

Bechaver said the men purchased over-the-counter hunting licenses, but later hiked into a remote, limited-license hunting area to take trophy-size bull elk. http://www.naweoa.org/article.php?sid=71

No one here has denied that poaching occurs in roaded areas. BUZZ, you are the only one to say that serious hunters that go into the "wilderness" wouldn't. I say that they can and do. |oo

 

[MattK]

TB- those are the people I was writing about. The area they were poaching is heavily roaded and I believe they were going into winter range on Boyd Mountain also. The article says a remote part of the blackfoot valley near Seeley Lake but it really isn't anymore remote than the rest of Montana. Note they used ATVs also. Without ATVs their access and ability to poach the amount they did would have been severly hampered. There is a lot more poaching where access and the "getaway" is easier. That's a fact.