FYI
BigTex...are you a hunter? i haven't seen a post you've made on here that was about your hunting ventures. ..What do you suppose the right thing to do is in this possible trespassing and/or poaching situation?
Just checked BigTexs post history a bit strange just joined Today and only posted on this topic Date Registered: Today at 09:39:28 AM
Last Active: Today at 03:56:25 PM.....Kinda Odd .hmmmmm.....not that there is anything wrong with it...but still a bit strange since most members post in many many different areas it seems....
WDFW Announcements , Hunting Politics and Activism 2
To answer your question yes I am a hunter, in fact I am a Master Hunter. I have been viewing this website for several weeks now and became a member today and thought I would give my insight to this issue.
To answer your question about what I would do for this incident (poaching/trespassing) I will answer it from both a hunter’s standpoint and a law enforcement officer standpoint
Hunter: When I see fish/wildlife violations the first thing I do is call the local state patrol office. They dispatch WDFW Officers 24/7/365. Some people say call the poaching hotline, well the problem with the poaching hotline is it is only available during normal business hours, and at times it isn’t very reliable. All state patrol numbers are in the hunting/fishing regs so you just call the closest office. In fact the regs say to call WSP when it is outside of normal business hours.
Even if there is not a WDFW Officer on-duty in the county at the time of your call they will do two things, 1. Call a WDFW officer at home, WDFW officers are subject to call out 24/7. 2. If they can’t reach a WDFW officer at home they will contact the neighboring county to see if there is a WDFW officer on duty there and if not, they will then call the officers in that county at home.
If for some reason you don’t have the regs/or the WSP numbers do this: Call 911 and immediately state “non-emergency poaching state patrol please” they will then transfer you to the WSP dispatch. There have been incidents when someone calls in a poaching incident to 911 (which are operated by the county, not WSP) and the dispatcher takes down the info and never forwards the info to WSP dispatch or if they do its hours later. If you state what I said above they will transfer you in seconds.
Law Enforcement Officer: Outside of a WDFW officer most deputies, troopers, and city cops don’t know anything about hunting/fishing laws and how to enforce them. It is just not taught to them, whereas in Oregon hunting/fishing laws are taught at the police academy. Usually the only non-WDFW officers who enforce hunting/fishing laws are officers who hunt/fish themselves and have basically taught themselves the ins and outs of WDFW laws. This is probably why the Cowlitz deputies only cited for shooting from a roadway, because that’s a pretty easy law to understand. As far as shooting before hours, a deputy would know nothing about that, unless they are a hunter. As I said in my other post a judge would just laugh at a hunter orange ticket, in fact most WDFW officers don’t even write that ticket, they just give warnings for it. As far as the trespass goes, the owner of the land would have to complain/tell the police to cite them for trespassing, if they don’t tell the police that then the police can’t cite for trespassing. A officer will not seek out a landowner just to see if they want to press charges for trespassing. It is kind of like WA’s indecent exposure law, somebody other then the police must complain before any action is taken, until then it is perfectly legal to run around naked. I am willing to bet that had a WDFW officer responded this would have turned out a lot different. I know how many WDFW officers are in Cowlitz county and I am not going to say how many for safety reasons but it is nowhere near what it should be.
