<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Thanks, Saundra.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Courtesy of today's (April 19, 2014) Lewiston Tribune.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">-----------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div><h1 id="blox-asset-title" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 34px; font-size: 30px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="blox-headline entry-title" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(204, 0, 0); line-height: 38px; font-family: TiresiasInfofontRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Two-legged wolves' take heavy toll</span></h1><p class="sub-headline" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 10px 20px; background-image: url(http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/lmtribune.com/content/tncms/live/components/core_base_library/resources/images/dingbat.gif); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Area game wardens say poachers kill staggering amount of game yearly</p><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Nobody knows just how many animals are killed by poachers, but game wardens say the number is likely shocking.</span></p><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That's because they know they only learn about a small percentage of illegal kills.</span></p><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Game wardens forever have often wondered how many animals are being taken unlawfully. It's a question we want to answer," said Mark Hill, a senior conservation officer for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston. "We know the amount we detect, the raw amount, but we don't know what our violation detection rate is."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For illustrative purposes, he and his colleagues Barry Cummings, who patrols the Moscow area, and George Fischer, who works in the Grangeville area, placed their detection rate at 10 percent, a number they say would be fantastic.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Ten percent is impossible," Hill said while Cummings and Fischer guffawed. "There is no way it's 10 percent."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Last year, they know of 30 elk, four moose, 13 mule deer and 57 whitetail deer that were poached in one fashion or another in the Clearwater Region. If those cases represent 10 percent of all big game violations, it would mean about 300 elk, 40 moose, 130 mule deer and 570 whitetail deer were taken unlawfully.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The officers want people to think about those numbers and to be as outraged as many hunters are about the effect wolves and other predators have on big game populations.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It's real easy for people to blow a gasket about wolf predation. They are very passionate about it, they are very irate about it and they are livid about it," Fischer said. "Yet there is a two-legged wolf out there that is probably killing as many or more than wolves. Wolves are causing an impact, there is no doubt about it; I don't want to downplay that at all, but two-legged wolves are probably killing more or stealing more game than wolves. That is the shock-and-awe message."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If their detection rate is 5 percent, something they say is much more realistic, then the numbers rise to 600 elk, 80 moose, 260 mule deer and more than 1,000 whitetail. If those numbers were attributed to predators, Cummings said, people would take action.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Holy buckets, we would be setting budgets aside. We would develop a group to figure out what it was and we would develop a plan to deal with it, but we won't even talk about what impact this has on wildlife," Cummings said. "Why not?"</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The reason, they say, is too many people don't look at wildlife crimes as a crime against them. For example, Cummings said there is a $10,000 civil penalty in Idaho for poaching a moose, and a $750 fine for illegally killing an elk. He often makes that point to hunter education classes he speaks to. He asks the students if they would call the police if someone stole $750 from them or from a friend or neighbor. The answer is an overwhelming yes.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"So why wouldn't you be that upset if somebody took an elk unlawfully, because essentially they stole $750 from the sportsmen of Idaho, including the opportunity to harvest that animal."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Poaching means different things to different people. Some see it as the criminals who shoot game and leave it to waste, or greedily take any animal they see. Hill said his definition is simple: anyone who violates hunting rules to take an animal. It includes things like trespassing, shooting from a road, hunting over salt and party hunting, - where hunters combine efforts and allow hunting partners to shoot animals for them or to use their tags.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Too often, Hill said, people are not willing to report those sorts of crimes.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I don't know if it's because they almost look at themselves in the mirror and say, 'If I turn in so and so, I'm going to be reflecting on some of the things I do and they will turn me in.' "</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There have been a limited number of studies trying to determine the poaching detection rate. More than 40 years ago, a University of Idaho graduate student replicated poaching by placing road kill deer in highly visible fields near roads and then shot a gun to see how many people would report it. He got responses less than 2 percent of the time.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A study by Anthony Novack of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife used anonymous surveys to ask hunters if they had broken hunting laws. The study isn't finished and is expected to be published later this year, but intial findings indicate about 12 percent of people admitted to driving on closed roads while deer or elk hunting. About 9 percent admitted they trespassed while hunting, and 7 percent said they had allowed someone else to use their tag, tagged a deer or elk killed by somebody else or failed to tag a deer or elk.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Novack said figuring out how many people cheat is a difficult task.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It's that moral question, the true test is what you do when nobody is looking and when you are out hunting there is hardly anybody looking," he said.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hill pointed to an Oregon study on mule deer mortality. Officials at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife placed radio collars on 500 mule deer and followed them between 2005 and 2010. When one died, they tried to get to it as quickly as possible to determine the cause of death. They found of those shot, 19 were killed illegally and 21 were killed legally.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hill said the study only measured illegal kills as those that were out of season or the wrong gender for an open season. It didn't cover things like party hunting, trespassing or hunting over bait.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The officers hope that more people will speak up when they see or learn of a hunting violation.</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"What we need to do is get more people to make the call and report violators that they know of and more people need to say enough is enough," he said. "Those activities that have been going on for decades - road hunting, party hunting, trespassing - they should not be tolerated."</span></p></div><div class="encrypted-content" style="outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: none !important;"><p style="outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-image: none; float: none !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Violations can be reported to Idaho Fish and Game officials at (208) 799-5010 or to the Citizens Against Poaching Hotline at (800) 632-5999.</span></p></div></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">-----------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"There's room at the top they are telling you still.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you want to be like the folks on the hill."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- John Lennon</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br>On Apr 19, 2014, at 2:23 AM, "Saundra Lund" <<a href="mailto:v2020@ssl1.fastmail.fm">v2020@ssl1.fastmail.fm</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><div><span>If anyone can post the LMT article referenced, I'm sure I'm not the only one</span><br><span>who would appreciate it. It seems to me our tax dollars would be far, far</span><br><span>better spent hunting down these damn poachers than caving to the paranoia of</span><br><span>the mentally unhinged "big bad wolf" crowd.</span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span><a href="http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post/north-idaho-poachers-taking-heavy-toll">http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post/north-idaho-poachers-taking-heavy-toll</a></span><br><span>-game</span><br><span></span><br><span>North Idaho Poachers Taking Heavy Toll On Game</span><br><span></span><br><span>State wildlife officials in northern Idaho say poachers are killing far more</span><br><span>game animals than wolves.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Officials tell the Lewiston Tribune that last year in northern Idaho they</span><br><span>confirmed poaching of 30 elk, four moose, 13 mule deer and 57 whitetail</span><br><span>deer.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Officials say a realistic detection rate is 5 percent, meaning poachers are</span><br><span>likely killing about 600 elk, 80 moose, 260 mule deer and 1,000 whitetail.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Idaho Fish and Game District Conservation Officer Barry Cummings says many</span><br><span>people don't report wildlife crimes because they don't consider it a crime</span><br><span>against them.</span><br><span></span><br><span>The fine in Idaho for illegally killing an elk is $750, while the fine for</span><br><span>illegally killing a moose is $10,000.</span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span>=======================================================</span><br><span> List services made available by First Step Internet,</span><br><span> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.</span><br><span> <a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a></span><br><span> <a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com</a></span><br><span>=======================================================</span><br><span></span><br></div></blockquote></body></html>