justifiable poaching?

[CoRoMo]

I voted no.

+1 retrieverman; oxymoron

HOWEVER...

I voted before I read any of the posts including the initial one. I think if I was broke, unemployed, and hungry, I'd just cash in on this country's over eager welfare programs. Soup kitchens are plentiful in the USA and there is no reason why any American should poach to put food on the table. Yet, I can tell you for certain that if I was stranded out in Alaska's interior frontier where there is no getting to civilization, and it is down to survival, I'd kill anything I could to put meat in the belly. That type of situation is really the only one that I can imagine to justify poaching, but then again would it be poaching?

 

[MCgunner]

I don't think killing to survive when stranded would meet the definition of "poaching" IMHO.

Soup kitchens are plentiful in the USA and there is no reason why any American should poach to put food on the table.

Amen, brother. I can't imagine being so self conscious as to care what people think about you so you kill game illegally while not caring that you are breaking the law by killing illegally. I have saved and survived, personally, because of the fact that I didn't give a damn that people thought I was cheap for living in a two bedroom frame home on 80K a year family income or drove a 20 year old Toyota pick up or didn't wear a Rolex or mow my yard with a John Deere zero turn or whatever. I don't give a damn and I'm getting the last laugh now. I have nearly a half a million in mutual funds 300K of it sending me cash every month in a 72T IRA and the average "baby boomer" of my age, I heard on Fox the other day, has a grand total of 50K saved probably in 401Ks. I can attest that most where I once worked ain't got squat! They're going to be living off social security and not much else, so I hope they can afford the gasoline or diesel for those one ton dualies they're driving and the electricity for those 5,000 sq ft homes they like to brag about when they ain't working anymore. Myself, I'm damned proud I got out of there before I got cancer from the Vinyl Chloride or something. The shift work was really getting to me and now, I hunt and fish whenever the HELL I want! But, I ain't too proud to ask for my social security (if it still exists, another thread) in 7 years. After all, I paid my taxes for 35 years, in fact am STILL paying taxes. Which reminds me, I need to go take care of 650 dollars in property taxes before the end of the month.

 

[Cosmoline]

If there's a big quake and people are going hungry, I wouldn't want to be one of the park strip moose! Or a pudgy tourist, for that matter.

Soup kitchens are plentiful in the USA and there is no reason why any American should poach to put food on the table.

In the lower 48, maybe. Up here there's a big issue over subsistence hunting/poaching. Until Alaska created game laws and started enforcing them, natives and locals alike had been pretty much hunting as needed to survive. So the restrictions, esp. for outside hunting interests, created some tension. These days the feds have pretty much taken over regulation of native hunting, and the state regulates non-native hunting. But there are bad feelings both ways. The reality of it is, if you're hungry you need to get food and the growing season is short to non-existent. If you don't have cash money and lots of it, plus a way to get to at least an AC store, you have no choice. You get food or you die. There's no skin color distinction in such matters in real life, but unfortunately because of political resistance there is one law for natives and another for non-natives.

 

[macFarlaine]

Then or now ? Then yes,you would of died of starvation (Highland Clearances,Potato famine).All English rural villages had the poacher,he was the chap who fed the poor for a few pennies.He was a countryman with all the knowledge one could aquire.Famous village tales of the war of the landowner and his gamekeepers against the wily poacher and his dog spot are still told around the fire in the village pub today.

Good reading:Kenzie The Wild Goose Man.

Today no,we are proped up by our respective governments.

 

[plumberroy]

i live in a rural area where there are few jobs

Then MOVE! after all we are talking about survial

If You can't afford food How the HELL are you going to afford to move your family stuff pay deposites for rent survive till you get a pay check started

You go and apply for FOOD stamps possibly swinging by the Food bank on the way

ya right most of these systems are designed for those that don't want to work If you are If you really want to work and hit a hard spot they tell you you made to much money last month, sorry about your luck! we're only here for illegal aliens and low lifes
I really try to be civil But it pisses me off when people that have never had it rough look down there noses and get on there high horses about people that do have it rough. I started out digging ditches at $5 an hour so I could learn to be a plumber with a wife and 6 year old child paying $400 a month rent utilities and stuff you need to live there is no money to save. even working 60 hours a week a couple days of bad weather and you are F@#%ed Go to the gov. ask for some of your tax money back? nope we need that for the low lifes. Do you know you can catch ducks in a cast net at night and bass and redear and small gators I'll go hungry, my wife and kids won't!!! don't look down your nose at some one till you have walked a mile in there shoes.
IS there justifiable poaching YES if you are truly in need I will help you all I can if I can't help you enough and you still need food for your family I'd loan you a gun and some ammo.on the other hand If I catch some one with a 45k truck 3k gun killing a buck and taking just the head and tenderloins I will make a call to the poacher hotline. I have worked my way from a ditch digger to a maintenance pipefitter in a uaw factory I've road a ten speed bike 13 miles one way to work 10-12 hours a day just to ride 13 miles home to get up and do it again tomorrow I've killed a deer ducks rabbits and other game out of season to feed my family UNTILL you have set in the kitchen and discussed with your wife the fact the choices this week are gas to get to work or food, then look in the living room and see your ten year old playing the one that may go hungry. DON'T GET F#$%ING HOLIER THAN THOU on me because I went out and shot a yearling doe
Roy

 

[Cosmoline]

ya right most of these systems are designed for those that don't want to work If you are If you really want to work and hit a hard spot they tell you you made to much money last month, sorry about your luck!

This is true. The wellfare systems are designed to encourage poverty, and punish people who are actually trying to get out of the hole. People do better by never taking a dime of gobment money and just making their own way even if it means breaking some laws. That's the way everyone in this country operated until the socialists came to power in the 30's.

 

[MCgunner]

Yeah, food stamps are for crack heads. If you have ANYTHING worth ANYTHING in your possession, you won't get 'em.

I moved where the work was, personally, and would uproot again if I was forced. Didn't move that far, am a native Texan, but Texas is a big place. I've worked all over the state at one time or another, well, east of the Pecos. Moving don't take that much, just sell out and move! Okay, it takes some work and logistics, you allergic to work? There are lots of yankee transplants from the "rust belt" in Texas.

 

[MCgunner]

Roy, if you're that down on your luck, there are jobs here. Move on down. I'll help ya out with legal game and fish. There is 400 a month rental here, fairly low cost of living or I wouldn't be here, LOL. There are plants hiring up and down the coast, contract companies, and such. Not much in the way of union work, probably why there IS work in the first place, but a job's a job, eh? Lots of pipe fitter work in the plants either contract or company.

 

[CoRoMo]

If You can't afford food How the HELL are you going to afford to move your family stuff pay deposites for rent survive till you get a pay check started

I started out with nothing, did better, sometimes hit hard times and got back up again, and now I'm doing good. If you have to sale everything you own and move, you do. You don't hang onto things because you can't afford to move them. I don't pity the poor because that is where I came from, and probably still am, but when we're talking that poor, there is a million and one ways to get a meal in this country. ANY local mission, church, shelter provides free meals, no questions asked. Many times they also have a bed or a place on the floor you're welcome to sleep in. You don't have to fill out financial paperwork to see if you qualify, just show up hungry. I won't fault any man for doing the best he can do, but there are so many other ways to feed your family and yourself than buying some ammo, filling up the gas tank, driving out to the hills, and hiking around in the woods looking for food. I just don't see it and I'm sorry.

 

[oklahoma caveman]

thanks plumber roy. thats exactly the kind of predicament that i was implying when i started this thread.

 

[Cosmoline]

ANY local mission, church, shelter provides free meals, no questions asked.

That may be so, but personally I'd rather break some game laws than go down that path. I'd almost rather knock over a bank. Once you've given up that last bit of self respect what is there left to live for?

 

[MCgunner]

BTW, I started out mopping floors at a buck forty five an hour. 5 an hour would have been awesome! You don't start at the top, eh? Life is a struggle, that's pretty much a given, unless you're born to money or have an awesome talent with a ball or bat or something or just get lucky. To get it, you gotta work for it, at least if you came from nothing like many of us do and I did. I worked, I studied, and I still found time for some fun along the way. Weren't all THAT bad. There were lean times, there were fat. I look back on those days and smile now. Yeah, I was a bit worried about it at the time, but ya know, most of what a guy worries about is STUFF, not survival. It's really hard to starve to death in the lower 48.

It's sorta lean right now, but I've made it far as survival goes. I ain't got a couple of Ferraris in the garage, hell, I don't even have a garage, but everything I have is mine and I make the bills and buy a toy now and then and enjoy myself. It took a lot to get here, but it was worth the effort and it wasn't luck, just hard work. I broke no laws doing it, either. I lived by the rules. I could have a lot more now if I'd have lived a more boring life. Motorcycle racing really is an extravagance. Some of the things I did would make Dave Ramsey have a heart attack, and it all seemed important at the time.

I guess it's my background and then the education, but I've always had an ethic about game management and even when I was hungry and had deer I could have shot in the summer, I took legal rabbits and a hog instead, along with a lot of yard greens and such and whatever I could scrounge. One summer, I was working for 2.23 an hour counting insects in cotton near Pearsall, Cotulla in south Texas. I lived on a ranch rent free courtesy of the rancher who's cotton we counted and he let me scrounge for food. He TOLD me to take a doe, but I didn't, didn't feel right about that even at the age of 20. I didn't NEED the doe, had enough jacks and cottontail and shot a pig. That was augmented with the occasional bag of ramen noodles. Yumm.

I lived there sands any sort of AC, but with hot water and cooking facilities. I don't know if you've ever been in south Texas south of San Antonio in the summer, but it does get rather warm there. I was not really used to AC, though, not having grown up with it. Now days, I look back at it and wonder how the HELL I ever survived back then without AC. ROFL!

 

[glockman19]

I voted YES. A family who is homeless, poor, or otherwise starving IMHO has teh right to hunt for food.

 

[MCgunner]

So, where does the "right to survive" stop? Does he then have the right to break other laws, like paying for the electricity bill by robbing a bank at gunpoint? I won't go down the slippery slope of ignoring laws and the rights of other people (land owners that pay property taxes, for instance) for survival in a modern society. Now, yeah, if society collapses under the weight of the Muslim hoards, all bets are off.

 

[roo_ster]

I voted yes. There are circumstances where the law, even game law, is an ass.

Currently, I have no cause to do so, as I am doing well enough.

But, if the immediate choice before me was poach or the kids go hungry, anything that would provide quality protein had best keep an eye out.

I have been fortunate enough in life to have never been faced with such a decision.

 

[Kimber1911_06238]

in a survival situation, yes. in any other situation, probably not

in response to plumberroy's comments: I definitely wouldn't look down my nose at you for keeping your family from starving. In fact, I'd donate venison and fish to make sure that wouldn't happen.

 

[geekWithA.45]

If every person living below the poverty line

I remind people that in America, 2007, OBESITY is the primary health problem for people below the poverty line.

I for one, don't subscribe to a concept of "poaching".

I -do- believe, however, that we, as humans, hold the world in a state of stewardship, and have a responsibility not to wantonly or foolishly waste the earth's abundance.

The decisions to take game can be more or less consistent with this, and sometimes, one must decide to restrain oneself.

In that light, the primary moral question becomes, "what to do with folks that cannot restrain themselves, or who usually make unwise or unjustifiable decisions?"

 

[learningman]

I voted yes. I fed our family for a number of years with the deer that I got during hunting season. All the while I was working and trying to dig out of the hole. I would even pick rocks for farmers in the summer for some extra cash. Hell I lived in my car for just shy of two months and took my bath in Big Timber creek while I saved enough money to pay for a hotel to live in while I was working. I took deer without a tag, but only what was needed to get through the lean times. My life has made a big turn around since those days. But if it came to that again then I would do what I felt I must. This is a very "hot" topic and each one of us has to sleep in the bed he made. At the end of the day my family will eat, and I will only take what is needed to serve that end.

 

[macFarlaine]

Obesity the primary health problem for people living below the poverty line.It really does not make sense,or does it.Presumably you have to eat lot's of food to become obese,lot's of food costs lot's of money ?

 

[MCgunner]

Yeah, it's a somewhat hot, but fun to discuss topic IMHO.

And, yeah, it's quite ironic that in a country that cries so much about its poor, the number one health problem is obesity. ROFLMAO! That right there should tell ya something about the availability of food in our society. Another irony is that we give so many of the "poor" food stamps so they can sell them for crack. I've been asked at walmart if I wanted to get 30 bucks more food for my money and just give HER cash for the food stamps. Just lookin' at her, I could tell what she needed the cash for.

And, Cosmoline, I think Alaska is sort of another case scenario. It ain't normal, LOL! I really don't know how the native and other populations in a state that big can hurt the game populations by subsistence hunting, but then, I've seen no numbers on the subject. I know if I lived in the outback there, I'd fish, I'd hunt, I'd eat. I'd do it under the law, plenty of fish there if nothing else. Of course, I guess that only applies mostly along the coast. The interior is another matter. And, if I were surviving in Alaska, I'd be praying for global warming.

 

[f4t9r]

in a survival situation, yes. in any other situation, no.
Its amazing how far off the orginal post some of these threads get.
Anyone put in a bad enough spot would do what they had to do to provide for ones family. I really do not think that is poaching. So the thread should read would you kill a animal or fish without a permit or out of season to provide for your family. For most of us the answer is yes.
I would say the older members here would understand better then the younger. My family had to move for jobs and hunt to feed the Family. Alot of kids today including mine have never had to worry about where the next meal is comming from (not that its not out there). Surviving is one thing and poaching is another in my opinion. If you have never had to worry about a meal or money then you most likely posted that you ride a high horse and would never do anything wrong and curse those that do and Im talking about as far as hunting or providing for your Family goes. I hope you know that if thats the case you have been blessed in your life. Times are quite different from the 50's,60's and even most of the 70's then they are today. Thats what I base my opinion on, The fact that I am old and still old school today.

To answer another post: We are fat because of what we eat and the way we were raised. If people hunted more and had to live off the land there would be a whole lot less fat people and lazy people. It has come to the fact that more people.
"live to eat then people who eat to live"

 

[glockman19]

geekWithA.45,

Obesity means you are eating maybe overeating if you don't have a thyroid contition.

IF one is starving then poaching defination changes to survival. It is our goal to survive, not to starve.
As a matter of fact I have gone to my local market and asked If I could have some of the pre prepared chickens they are throwing out for use as bait for my lobster nets. They said they are NOT allowed to give away or donate extra food. There are liability issues. Totally rediculous. Throw away good food instead of donating it. of course this all happened because sone homeless person sued and won anlarge settlement because of food poisioning.

 

[R.W.Dale]

If You can't afford food How the HELL are you going to afford to move your family stuff pay deposites for rent survive till you get a pay check started

Are you serious? If worst comes to worst you use those flappy things on the bottom of your legs. Some have reported good sucess from merely putting their thumb in the air whilst standing next to a public roadway.

A tent with some firewood and food provided by a low paying job beats the crap out of starving to death in a rental property.

I really try to be civil But it pisses me off when people that have never had it rough look down there noses and get on there high horses about people that do have it rough.

NO what cheese me off is whining about how hard things are. I've had it pretty rough and still do at times yet I have NOBODY but myself to blame and I'll be dammed if I'm going to whine to others about it

Life is hard! You'll get nowhere in life sitting idly whining about how tough things are.


I 'm rather surprised this thread openly advocating engaging in illegal activity has stayed open?

 

[MCgunner]

NO what cheese me off is whining about how hard things are. I've had it pretty rough and still do at times yet I have NOBODY but myself to blame and I'll be dammed if I'm going to whine to others about it

Life is hard! You'll get nowhere in life sitting idly whining about how tough things are.

Amen!

Ya know, I went through all that to get an education. If I find myself needing more income, I have options. I can substitute teach, 80 bucks a day. My daughter is doing that now, they're crying for subs, also bus drivers. There's always a way, I just don't want a job right now, doing pretty good working on lawn equipment in my shop. Why work when I'm having fun?

 

[redneckrepairs]

Now i am former LE tho not DOW . I have in fact driven up on a situation where a fella i wanted to talk to about work on my house was skinning an out of season deer when i walked up . He did have 5 kids and a 30-30 , but never in his life as far as i know took a dollar from the welfare system . I found out he had just lost a motor in his work truck ( he was pretty much a handyman and a good one ) . I never " took notice " of any fresh caucus in this situation , and in fact part of his fee was a " junk " car which the motor just happened to fit his work truck .