The Trespasser

Help me identify this trespasser and possibly poacher!

This morning my son and I spent a couple wet hours at Neverland, and decided to leave before we got really wet, but on the way out we stopped to remove the memory cards from a couple of trail cameras.

Once we arrived home we had some cassoulet to warm us up and I downloaded the pictures to my computer and as I moved through them, showing mostly smallish antlerless deer and a couple "illegal" bucks I came across the photo above that made me angry and upset.

Neverland is a small property, posted, and kept as undisturbed as possible. Except for some tree stands, one feeder, ten or twelve beehives and the bridge over the Mann creek, and of course the take of a couple deer each season, we let it be.

So, why would the trespasser in the photo think that he has the right to intrude in my domains and disturb my minuscule deer refuge, and that two days before Opening Day of gun season?

I found the following definitions at Google:

tres·pass·er

ˈtrespəsər,ˈtresˌpasər/

noun

1. a person entering someone's land or property without permission.

   "a trespasser on his land"

   synonyms:

   intruder, interloper, unwelcome visitor, encroacher "trespassers will be prosecuted"

poach·er²

ˈpōCHər/

noun

noun: poacher; plural noun: poachers

1. a person who hunts or catches game or fish illegally.

I am not sure when a trespasser becomes a poacher, but the person in the photo is carrying a gun, uninvited, in my property! So, Monday I will be filing a report both at the local Sheriff's Office and the DNR.

In the meantime, please, help me identify this trespasser and possibly poacher!

A Neighbor's Gift

My father bought the farm “Buriti do Retiro” in the municipality of Morrinhos, southern Goiás state, central Brazil, in 1978, and at that time Goiás had quite a bit of “frontier” on it. We even faced some cattle rustling, and that was solved with a good barbeque party and the proper guest list (but that is another story).

Both my parents were fully licensed lawyers that could practice anywhere in Brazil (my mother still holds her license), but neither ever made a cent practicing law. My mother was a teacher and my father a farmer, and they only did some eventual pro-bono law work. It may appear strange, but that was their case.

We had an elderly neighbor that had a small property (that we eventually bought many years later) that got in a legal dispute for whichever reason with another much larger labor, but could not afford to hire a lawyer. As he risked losing his homestead, he asked for help and my father accepted to represent him.

I don’t know the details, but my father won the case, and when the old gentleman tried to pay him some amount, my father refused to receive any compensation.

One evening sometime later the old gentleman came visiting and brought a gift to my father, the skull and antlers of a “veado-campeiro” (Ozotocerus bezoarticus). The literal translation of veado-campeiro, a superbly beautiful animal, is field-deer or prairie-deer, as it typically occurs in more open or tree-less environments, different than the brocket deer that inhabits quite heavy brush and forests.

The typical veado-campeiro rack is a 3x3, and the gift that we received was exceptionally well formed and symmetric, and I would say of above average size. When we received it, the skull still had some dried skin attached to it, and there were glass marbles in the eye sockets, held in place by cotton balls.

In his typical unselfish way my father mentioned that the gift was very nice, but not necessary, and that the old gentleman did not own him anything, and that he just had helped a neighbor and a friend.

The old man insisted that my father should accept the trophy deer skull, and before leaving he finally said that it would not be proper for him to keep it anyhow, since he had poached it from our own farm.

Poachers

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of a poacher (noun) is 1: One that trespasses or steals; 2: One who kills or take wild animals (as game or fish) illegally. They also say that the term was first used in 1614, and that would be aligned with the social changes in Europe and the private ownership or exclusive use of wild game by certain strata of society (more often that not, the king and “his friends”) and the taking of those same animals by the underprivileged class or classes.

Since I understand that there are certain persons or populations, commonly known as subsistence hunters, that do take game not always legally for their own survival even in this “modern” times, personally I would complement the definition of a poacher as “one who kills or take wild animals (as game or fish) illegally and for a profit.”

One of my first personal experiences with poachers or poaching was during my 2005 safari in South Africa. If I remember correctly during my first day out, my professional hunter Frans Bussiahn spotted a single drop of blood as we walked a trail to spot for kudu, and his alarm bells went immediately on.

He started to carefully scrutinize the area for any tracks, spoor or more blood, but we could not find any other traces. As we continued on our track to an advantage point to glass for kudu Frans mentioned that “poachers are the lowest form of life form on earth, even lower than child molesters.”

That is a very strong statement, but when you consider that poaching was responsible for the slaughter of uncountable elephant herds during the 1970’s bush wars in Southern Africa, wiped out wild game in most of Kenya, and currently is driving the African rhinoceros into virtual extinction, I am not sure that I would disagree to Frans.

The next time was in North Dakota in 2009 while on a pheasant hunt. Before meeting in New England, ND, my friends Bob and Rick had been grouse hunting in Montana, and both of them came across the skulls (with attached antlers) of winter killed deer, and not knowing better they collected them as souvenirs.

Then one afternoon Bob and I were hunting a fantastic piece of non-posted private property (which is legal to hunt in North Dakota) when the local game warden came by. Bob already had his limit and was at the truck and I was about a half mile away. While I walked back I saw that Bob was getting something from the truck.

I generally hunt upland birds with a side-by-side shotgun, so when I arrived the warden said that he did not have to my gun for the maximum legal three shells capacity and politely asked me for my license.

At this time I noticed that Bob was worried and that “his” deer skull was at the warden’s truck, and that Bob was not looking very happy.

The warden then explained that in most Western states it is illegal to pick-up, or in many cases even touch, any skull of a dead animal with antlers or horns attached to it, while it is completely alright to collect shed antlers.

The reason is that many poachers will shoot a trophy animal out of season when they are most vulnerable, and abandon the animal to rot in the woods, returning several months later to “find” a trophy rack that can be sold for a large sum of money.

In order to complicate matters, the fact that that particular skull had been picked-up in Montana, and we were now in North Dakota could be qualified as a federal offense.

I am proud to be a hunter, and unhappily I experienced more than once the heart breaking pain of losing a wounded animal, after a long and unsuccessful search for it, and I have trouble of thinking of a more disgusting act than abandoning an animal on purpose, wounded or dead, and then attempt to profit from this act.

While in most of South Africa game is private property and the game ranching is way of the land, under the United States conservation model, wild animals are the property of the people, and only become yours or mine property once properly tagged. Thus, while in my first exposure to poaching in Africa Frans was being robbed, any poacher acting in the US is actually stealing from you and me.

Our incident in North Dakota end well enough. The warden was extremely polite and reasonable, and said that if it was OK with us he would just apprehend the skull and not pursue any further action.

We got some education on a rather ugly side of the great outdoors, and that made me think that perhaps Frans was right after all.