Question on poaching

[swanderek]

I have always wondered about this.
What percent of deer taken by people are poached?
Anyone have any educated guess or insight?
Like 90% legal sportsman and 10% poached?

[bigtex]

A study by Oregon St U about 15 years ago said for one legally taken animal there is one illegally taken animal.

[Bango skank]

A study by Oregon St U about 15 years ago said for one legally taken animal there is one illegally taken animal.

I know there are a lot of dirtbags out there, butva 1:1 ratio is pretty hard to believe   maybe just because i donr want to believe it

[idahohuntr]

How is "illegally taken" defined?  If it's any violation of any associated rule/law then the overall impact is probably very low.  For example, if they count not leaving evidence of sex, or no hunter orange as "illegally taken"...I'd argue those are infractions but not anything that should be used in discussions of how many deer are illegally taken each year. 

[swanderek]

I would be more interested in major ones.
Out of season, wrong weapons, multiple deer... things like that

[bearpaw]

How is "illegally taken" defined?  If it's any violation of any associated rule/law then the overall impact is probably very low.  For example, if they count not leaving evidence of sex, or no hunter orange as "illegally taken"...I'd argue those are infractions but not anything that should be used in discussions of how many deer are illegally taken each year. 

good points, I agree 

( I think the poaching rate is getting lower as years go by)

[bigtex]

This isn't the study I was referring to but it shows similar results:

The state study was conducted from Bend to the California border. Of 500 mule deer fitted with radio collars between July 2005 and last January, 128 died during the research. Of those, poachers killed 19 and hunters legally shot 21. Cougars killed 15 and eight were hit and killed by cars. Of the rest, five succumbed to coyotes, disease claimed five and four died while tangled in fences or from some other accident, Jackson said.

Biologists listed 51 as "cause of death unknown" but poachers could have taken some of those, he said. "Sometimes we just find the radio collar laying out in the sagebrush," he said.

Because the study wasn't designed to ferret out poachers, biologists don't know if other areas have comparable numbers of deer taken illegally, said Don Whittaker, Fish and Wildlife ungulate coordinator, but they suspect poaching is happening across Oregon.

https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2010/11/study_show_ssurprising_rate_of_mule_deer_poaching.html

[bigtex]

How is "illegally taken" defined?  If it's any violation of any associated rule/law then the overall impact is probably very low.  For example, if they count not leaving evidence of sex, or no hunter orange as "illegally taken"...I'd argue those are infractions but not anything that should be used in discussions of how many deer are illegally taken each year. 

Not leaving evidence of sex isn't illegally taken, it's illegally possessed.

As far as hunter orange goes, the individual must've really pissed off the warden to receive that citation since just about everybody gives warnings for that offense. Even if they were issued a citation they wouldn't take a deer for it.

[huntnnw]

lotta animals poached in rural areas. There are alot of people who live almost off the grid or barely surviving shoot alot of animals when given the chance.

[Bob33]

Older study (1989) but interesting. The simple answer is "too many".

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-01-sp-236-story.html

Nobody knows how many deer are poached in California every year, but it’s suspected to be far more than the 35,000 taken legally--perhaps as many as 75,000. In most cases, it’s the perfect crime--no witnesses, no evidence that a crime was even committed.

[bankwalker]

lotta animals poached in rural areas. There are alot of people who live almost off the grid or barely surviving shoot alot of animals when given the chance.

I know a few families around here that live that life.

[huntnnw]

Its everywhere, we hunted a area 30 years ago around northport where there was tons of deer, then these meth shacks start popping up and within a few years we were asking ourselves what happend to the deer population. Not a coincidence. This was long before the predator problem we have now

[hunter399]

Its everywhere, we hunted a area 30 years ago around northport where there was tons of deer, then these meth shacks start popping up and within a few years we were asking ourselves what happend to the deer population. Not a coincidence. This was long before the predator problem we have now

What happens when a pot head turns into a meth head = a poaching machine.

[Tracker0721]

It’d help if the enforcement cared more about the wildlife than the fish. I called in a poached buck I found just the other day, no warden responded and now it’s gone. The best part is the deer left a trail running right back to the “mountain man’s” house. I hate those kind of people now because they claim to be “living off the land” and then they don’t preserve any of the meat so they only eat on it for a week and then they get another. Or they take hind quarters only. Or they go for moose and elk which are scarce enough up here. *censored*. I know more poachers than legal hunters right now. No lie. I tried talking to fish and game to become a warden and was told they wouldn’t put me back here everyone has to go to the port of Seattle first usually. So if you hunt ferry county just now these animals are getting the squeeze year round. Oh and most poachers and “mountain men” aren’t the old timers or ones that have been here. Most are the ones from the big cities or east coast that find out our land is cheap and get here. Once here they usually have to start making or dealing drugs to get by and few survive winter without committing some sort of crime- poaching deer, making some meth/BHO/or robbing someone else. So yeah, poached to legally taken in my area would be like 4:1 more than likely. Here’s the missed head shot during an archery only season.

[Bango skank]

It’d help if the enforcement cared more about the wildlife than the fish. I called in a poached buck I found just the other day, no warden responded and now it’s gone. The best part is the deer left a trail running right back to the “mountain man’s” house. I hate those kind of people now because they claim to be “living off the land” and then they don’t preserve any of the meat so they only eat on it for a week and then they get another. Or they take hind quarters only. Or they go for moose and elk which are scarce enough up here. *censored*. I know more poachers than legal hunters right now. No lie. I tried talking to fish and game to become a warden and was told they wouldn’t put me back here everyone has to go to the port of Seattle first usually. So if you hunt ferry county just now these animals are getting the squeeze year round. Oh and most poachers and “mountain men” aren’t the old timers or ones that have been here. Most are the ones from the big cities or east coast that find out our land is cheap and get here. Once here they usually have to start making or dealing drugs to get by and few survive winter without committing some sort of crime- poaching deer, making some meth/BHO/or robbing someone else. So yeah, poached to legally taken in my area would be like 4:1 more than likely. Here’s the missed head shot during an archery only season.

Pretty disgusting.  I always hear quite a few shots during archery season.  But what can you do about that?  Odds are some of those shots are poachers, but unless you actually see it to know whats going on, you just dont know, and i doubt a game warden would come investigate.  It could be predator hunters, natives, guys with moose tags or raffle tags or who knows.  could be, but im sure mostly its poachers.

And the "living off the land" thing is b.s.  need meat?  Buy a deer tag and 2 bear tags and fill them legally.  And these types of people always seem to have money for beer and smokes, so they can afford tags or store bought meat the way i see it.