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November 10, 2009 by
Investigators in Ohio believe rising unemployment and a tough economy is driving some ginseng diggers in the state to illegally harvest the root on private land and out of season.
For the past month, State Wildlife Officers from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife have been contacting many Ohio ginseng dealers and diggers as part of an ongoing investigation.
To date, Ohio wildlife officers have identified more than 30 individuals and 60 violations of Ohio law relating to ginseng root harvesting. As the investigation continues, authorities say formal charges will likely include digging ginseng without landowner permission, collecting or possession of ginseng during the closed season, failure to maintain accurate records and failure to certify ginseng prior to export.
The perennial herb is one of the most sought-after medicinal plants in the world. American ginseng occurs from Quebec, Canada, west to Minnesota and south to Georgia and Oklahoma.
Ohio certifies about 3,000 pounds of ginseng for export annually. There are 46 licensed ginseng dealers in the state with an estimated two to four thousand diggers. The number of diggers/harvesters varies annually depending on market conditions.
Last year, 3,626 pounds of ginseng were legally harvested in Ohio and sold to dealers at around $400 a pound. The value of the dried wild root fluctuates, and was as high as $1,000 per pound in 2007.
[ Read Full Post ] February 14, 2009 by
It should come as no surprise to regular readers of the Newshound blog that those who choose to deliberately break game and fish regulations are usually not the “sharpest tools in the shed,” so to speak.
Case in point:
A convicted felon prohibited by law from owning firearms or legally hunting didn’t let that stop him from an unusually bone-headed poaching attempt in Bay County, Fla. last week.
In the course of a night-time stakeout, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers Dennis Palmer and Mark Clements witnessed a man instruct his girlfriend’s 13-year-old daughter to shoot at an agency’s mechanical deer decoy—twice—while her mother illuminated the fake whitetail with their pickup truck’s headlights.
The weekly citations report from the FWC did not name the subjects involved in the incident.
According to the FWC, all three were cited for night hunting and road hunting. Fortunately (for them), being incredibly dumb is (currently) not a criminal offense in Florida. Otherwise, additional charges could have been applied in the case.
[ Read Full Post ]January 23, 2009 by
You’ve probably seen the television commercials for Southwest Airlines, where someone does something incredibly bone-headed, and the announcer asks, “Wanna get away?”
We figure that’s probably how Rusty Saunders of Fort Edward, N.Y. felt after he shot—and tagged—what he thought was an elk while hunting in Montana’s Paradise Valley last November.
The details are sketchy as to how Mr. Saunders initially came to his embarrassing revelation, but Mel Frost, the public information officer for the Bozeman office of Montana Fish, Parks and Wildlife confirmed that the Empire State woodsman turned himself in to a game warden in Livingston after realizing he’d bagged a shaggy-furred llama.
Outdoor writer Brett French of the Billings Gazette reported this week that Saunders’ case was ultimately turned over to the Montana Department of Livestock, because, unlike in its native Peru, the llama in considered to be a farm animal in the states, and not wildlife.
After investigating, the livestock folks turned the matter over to Park County authorities without issuing any citations.
“We don’t have any statute to prevent that kind of thing,” Steve Merritt, information officer for the Livestock Department in Helena, told French.
Photos taken by the livestock department showed the field-dressed dark brown and black llama in the back of a red pickup truck, with Saunders’ notched 2008 elk tag clearly attached to its neck. Not surprisingly, the photo is reportedly making the rounds on the Internet, along with verbiage inspired by another television advertising campaign.
30-06 rifle with Leupold Scope? $650;
Out of state license? $600;
Gas to drive from New York? $700;
Taking a trophy Montana llama? Priceless!
[ Read Full Post ] January 21, 2009 by
A once-prominent big game hunter and guide whose name and image appeared regularly in national hunting publications and advertisements for hunting rifles will never again hunt, fish or be allowed to own a firearm.
Once one of the country’s best-known hunting celebrities, the now-disgraced Kirt Darner, 69, was sentenced on Monday, Jan. 12, in Cibola County, New Mexico District Court to 4,500 hours of community service, fined $10,000 and ordered to pay an unspecified amount of restitution to the New Mexico and Colorado game agencies and a Colorado taxidermy business.
Darner, who pleaded guilty in June 2008 to charges of illegally transporting wild elk to his New Mexico ranch and receiving stolen bighorn sheep heads, faced a maximum penalty of four years in jail. As part of his plea agreement, he is prohibited from hunting, fishing or possessing firearms for life.
Darner was indicted by a grand jury in 2006 on 41 felony and misdemeanor counts, including receiving stolen property, transportation of stolen livestock and tampering with evidence. He was originally charged with illegally moving four state-owned elk from his Lobo Canyon Ranch in Grants, N.M., to another ranch and game park in southeastern New Mexico in 2002. In addition, a search warrant served in 2005 on the Darner property in New Mexico uncovered a desert bighorn sheep head and a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep head that had been stolen from a Montrose, Colo. Taxidermy shop in 2000.
Previously, in Colorado, Darner was convicted of illegal possession of wildlife in 1994. In 1999 he was convicted of second degree tampering with evidence and careless driving in an incident in which he was serving as an outfitter. At that time, Colorado Division of Wildlife officers observed Darner’s client shoot at an elk decoy in a game management unit for which the client didn’t have a license.
Darner gained prominence as a hunter and guide with an affinity for massive mule deer bucks in the 1970s and 80s. When photographic evidence revealed a mule deer Darner claimed to have shot was actually taken by another Colorado hunter 40 years earlier, his entries in the Boone and Crockett Club record book were subsequently expunged.
Though Cibola County Deputy District Attorney Randolph Collins was unsuccessful in his effort to see Darner’s latest sentence include prison time, his argument to the court ironically included an excerpt from Darner’s 1983 book, How to Find Giant Bucks.
“Penalties for game violations are not stiff enough,” Darner’s book stated. “There should be minimum fine and mandatory jail sentences for some crimes, such as shooting a deer out of season. Second offenders should get very stiff, mandatory penalties. If a potential violator knew he’d get a $1,000 fine and a minimum of 30 days in jail for shooting a buck out of season, he’d find more strength to resist the temptation.”
The Deputy DA’s memorandum to the court accurately summed up how a lot of sportsmen feel about the once-iconic figure of the big game hunting community.
“The book title (How to Find Giant Bucks), now given his conduct in our county and his quest to put his profit above all else, has double meaning--how to find giant bucks is really, for him, how to make a lot of money by violating the law.”
[ Read Full Post ] January 16, 2009 by
Like many other states, Colorado experienced a surge in firearms sales in 2008, especially following the November general election.
Firearms owners nationwide believe the election of Barack Obama signals a forthcoming return of the 90s-era ban of certain firearms and high capacity magazine—at the very least —as well as other gun and ammunition restrictions.
Background checks performed on Colorado firearms buyers exceeded 200,000 for the first time in state history for 2008, reflecting an increase of 26 percent from the previous year. Total background checks last year numbered 202,772, compared with 160,756 in 2007. Roughly 97 percent of all background checks are approved.
More than a quarter of the checks took place following the Nov. 4 general election.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation reports it conducted nearly 30,000 instant background checks for potential gun buyers in November and more than 26,300 in December. That compares with 18,569 checks in October and 14,556 in September. In January 2008, the CBI conducted 13,161 background checks.
Lance Clem, spokesman for the CBI, called it a “staggering year” for the Insta-Check Unit, which conducts the background checks.
“November was the biggest month,” Clem told the Rocky Mountain News. “We had records set on three separate days in November.”
[ Read Full Post ]
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