Country Living in the Big City, Cops Hunting Deer
Well Smithfield and Johnston County as a whole is about busting at the seams with growth. I did not realize the other day when I put up the story out of Smithfield about police hunting on duty that Tom already had it going on the Black Bear Blog and Philip at the Hog Blog also has it going as well. So let me see if I can shed a little more light on this topic.
With the growth we are experiencing around here bedroom communities for the Raleigh area is spreading further out and Smithfield is one such community. I live about half way between the two so I do get to Smithfield a fair amount however I’m not exactly familiar with South Smithfield where this is taking place.
Subdivisions have been a boom for the deer because the availability of year round food. Many of these areas were once agriculture and that may have given the deer some food but houses means landscaping and that’s the never ending salad bar for a deer. You have pockets of land that has not been developed near these subdivisions that provides the bedding and the cover for these deer to survive rather nicely. People think the deer are “cute” or “quaint” until they start tearing up their expensive manicured landscapes and their expensive cars.
In response to this problem really statewide the North Carolina Wildlife Commission came up with a January to February bow hunt season in urban areas and only for those cities that opted in to the program. As part of the law they left it up to the individual municipalities to decide whether or not they would have a proficiency requirement for those participating in the hunt or not. Each place could tailor make the proficiency requirement or they could go with one set up by an organization. Currently the North Carolina Bow Hunters Association has such a program that is available statewide. For this coming January no municipality sent a letter of intent to the Wildlife Commission by the April Deadline so they could be included in the regulations for this year so there will be no hunt this year.
Landowners now can bow hunt on there urban property during the regular hunting season provided that their city or town does not specifically prohibit it but most around here do. I can because I live out in the county and not within any city limits but I don’t hunt. I have plenty of deer running around. I routinely shoot my bow in my back yard and I would not consider myself very proficient with it but I’ve yet to have an arrow leave my property. I think the bow hunting option is a very good one because it is very safe especially if you require the hunters to take a bow hunting certification class, pass a proficiency test and to hunt from an elevated position.
I’m going to try to look into this a bit more and see what I can find out because I have some questions;
How does having a town employee on the clock reduce the risk of liability? (Seems to me it would increase it)
What are the guidelines and safety rules around this hunt? Types of weapons used? Hours? ( nighttime with lights, Saturdays & Holidays? Etc.)
I would like to hear more details on the whole process of how the deer are getting to the needy? Who’s processing them? Who’s distributing them?
How is it not a conflict of interest or inappropriate for an on duty officer to receive additional benefit from carrying out his duties by getting to keep one deer?
If anyone else has a question I should add please list it in the comments. I’ll keep following this one and see what I can find out.
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Pingback by Country Living in the Big City, Cops Hunting Deer | bow hunting — December 8, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
Hey Moose, I’ll lay back and let you get answers since you’re a lot closer than I am. It’d be cool if you could maybe get a short interview with the Town Manager and ask your questions directly… I bet he’d be willing to talk to ya.
Comment by Phillip — December 10, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
[...] coverage of this here, at Hog Blog and Black Bear [...]
Pingback by Police hunting deer full-time | hunting pressure — January 9, 2008 @ 11:44 am
[...] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI think the bow hunting option is a very good one because it is very safe especially if you require the hunters to take a bow hunting certification class, pass a proficiency test and to hunt from an elevated position. … [...]
Pingback by How To Hunt » Blog Archive » Country Living in the Big City, Cops Hunting Deer — February 24, 2008 @ 8:09 pm