Poaching Whitetails will cost you more than you think.
This story says it all. Poaching will cost you if your caught. I would openly support any bill that comes across to stop these people from making the good hunters look bad.
Poachers Will Pay “Deerly” If New Bill Passes
I had some guys last year threaten me, very angry with me, because I kicked them off the property, they don’t have permission to hunt on.”Every year, people kill hundreds of animals illegally in the Tri-State, but soon the price of poaching is going to soar. A new bill in the Ohio legislature is taking aim at deer poachers across the state. Lawmakers are expected to approve it shortly and it will set serious dollar values on deer taken illegally by poachers.
Local 12’s Rich Jaffe says the new law will change poaching penalties from a slap on the wrist to serious pain in the pocket.
Every year, hunters across Ohio contribute millions of dollars to the economy in pursuit of whitetail deer. But not everyone plays by the rules. Doug Combs is an avid bow hunter. Having come face to face with poachers in the past, even being threatened, he has to post the property he hunts with no trespassing signs, just to keep the poachers out.
Doug Combs, Bow Hunter: “Angers me, I don’t like it cause I’m real careful with the way I hunt, then these guys come in here and want to kill the deer that I’m hunting, I don’t like it.”
Each year poachers take hundreds of animals illegally. Stacks of racks like this are not unusual for wildlife officers after a single investigation … but poachers usually face minimal fines and minor penalties. A new Ohio law hopes to change that, turning racks like this into cold cash by increasing the fines poachers pay.
Jasmine McConnell, Ohio Division of Wildlife: “You measure the narrowest part, between each of the beams, measure the length of the beam, measure the width in between and you add up all those measurements to get a score…”
“Basically the new poaching regulations are all about inches, while there’s a sophisticated formula for figuring it out the bottom line is an inch of antler is worth about 82 dollars, that means a rack the size of this one if a poacher’s caught with it, will cost him as much as 14,500 dollars.”
“A 200 Class buck will cost a poacher 16,500 dollars in comparison to the current restitution which is only 400 dollars.”
The hope is poachers will learn big bucks, will cost them big bucks.
“I think it will help a lot when a poacher goes out and thinks if I get caught it’s going to cost me upwards of 25,000 dollars I think it’ll stop them.”
Rich Jaffe, Local 12.
The poaching bill is waiting for approval by the House of Representatives. It’s through committee in the Senate. Representative Bob Latta, says it has strong support in Columbus.