by John Jefferson
Wildlife in Texas belongs to all of the “People.”
When a poacher illegally kills game or fish, he is stealing from US! If a poacher illegally shoots game, it could be said he’s committing ARMED ROBERY!
There are laws against poaching. Anyone shooting a whitetail, mule deer, pronghorn, or bighorn sheep without the landowner’s permission, commits a “State Jail Felony!” He goes to jail instead of the state penitentiary. But this can affect voting rights, other rights, employment – and create a permanent criminal record.
If he wounds someone in this folly, punishment can be much more severe.
We and another couple rented a weekend place in the Frio Canyon once. It also offered deer hunting.
The other guy and I took our rifles and climbed a rough mountain without seeing a deer. As we descended on the far side into a pristine valley below, we met three hunters standing beside a car. We figured they were also day hunters on the large ranch. After visiting a few minutes, we asked if they were driving toward the cabin where we had stayed. They said they were going in the other direction — and had to get the borrowed car back to a relative.
The landowner later told us we were the only hunters on the ranch. Poachers!
Our friend’s wife — an experienced hunter — took her rifle and hunted a clearing near the cabin. The landowner said it usually had deer in it in late afternoons. She hunted until dusk.
She looked pale and disheveled when arriving at the cabin.
“I almost got shot,” she said.
As she was returning across the field at dusk, a car stopped on the road, backed up and shined a spotlight through the field, stopping it on her! She realized what was happening, screamed, and dropped to the ground. The car accelerated, spun gravel, and left.
She couldn’t get a good look at it, but her description sounded like the car the guys were in that morning. She could have been shot.
Another time on another deer lease our daughter, a TPWD wildlife employee, was hunting in brush near our north fence. She said a shot from near the fence sounded so close she jumped.
Later, we noticed a pile of corn and blood on the ground on our side of the fence. There was a new blind across the fence with an open window facing across our lease toward the corn and blood. State Game Warden Jim Lindeman investigated and later stopped a man coming out of that ranch.
Dried blood in the truck bed and other evidence led to the man admitting trespassing to put corn out and shooting a deer across the fence. He was charged.
His shot was the one that startled our daughter. Had he missed the deer, his shot could have hit her.
Far worse than stealing wildlife is the threat of an ill-placed shot taking the life of an innocent person.
It could have happened in both scenarios above.
JJ
