Shane Ullrich
Being an outdoorsman and a hunter, the law plays a big part in what I do – or should I say, don’t do. I have two boys who look to me and see their dad as being a wuss most of the time.
Simply because they want me to shoot anything and everything we see.
Hopefully, some day, they will know that I just didn’t want them to get the wrong impression.
Lately, game fines and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife policies and wildlife management have been greatly discussed topics amongst a lot of hunters. That’s as it should be, because it’s really about perspective on the law.
Some game fines seem simply more in line to create revenue than to keep a person safe or manage the wildlife. There are many degrees of laws. Some get broken sometimes; some get broken all the time. Maybe I’m wrong, but to keep it simple, it’s as if tag sales are down and getting a tag in an area that you want and being successful at filling that tag is like playing the lottery. Some are winners and most are not.
So with tag sales being down and salaries up in these agencies that assist in ODFW matters, when you combine the two, you get a mass amount of fines because that’s a way to offset the budget.
But I still believe that the punishment should fit the crime and the fines should be appropriate.
For example, suppose a person on public assistance, living on taxpayers’ money, violates their program by spending $400 of their allotment on steak at the local grocery store, then taking that and selling it to someone for half price to get some cash. That’s something that happens quite frequently. They get turned in and there is no fine, no loss of the car they used to transport the meat, and they never go to know. There’s no enforcement. There’s no officer of the law who hangs out at Hilltop or Center Market or Thriftway to check to see if people are toeing the line.
But when a person shoots a big game animal illegally, they lose their truck, their firearm, and their hunting privileges. Plus, they get a fine and possible jail time. All for an animal that a cougar or car may kill anyway – simply because the poacher took the state’s property – just like the person in the grocery store.
So how about cars? When you hit a deer, the state doesn’t take responsibility for that deer, does it? You have a busted grill and a broken headlight that’s going to cost you at least a grand, but whose deer is it now?
It should not come down to just money. Punishment for poaching should fit the crime. A poacher should definitely lose their ability to hunt the following year. But the draconian methods being employed against someone who shoots a deer the wrong way is too much. It’s just revenue for the state. What other crime, other than a few drug offenses, result in that kind of penalty?
The laws should be enforced, but is this enforcement in a fair and practical manner?
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The regular monthly meeting of the Albany Chapter, Association of NW Steelheaders, will be held at the Albany Senior Center in Albany at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5. The public is welcome.
The meeting will be a clinic meeting with members sharing their expertise of fishing methods from sturgeon to kokanee. Leading the pack will be Andy Landforce from Corvallis. Andy brings 70-plus years of experience to the clinic from his years of fishing the Northwest and Canada and is an expert in drift fishing and reading water. This is a must see meeting for anyone who needs to learn how to fish for many different species.
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The General Archery Elk season has re-opened, through Dec. 9, for the late season in the Alsea, McKenzie, Stott Mountain, northern portions of the Indigo, and the southwest portion of the Santiam Unit. Hunters are reminded that the bag limit is one antlerless elk. Elk are moving out of their summer range habitats and into wintering areas.
For the weekend of Nov. 17-18, hunters had a low success rate. Weather was poor for camps.
ODFW can use your biological samples from all harvested elk. Call the nearest ODFW office for drop-off locations. The samples are useful tools for ODFW in testing for chronic wasting disease as well as aging the animals. Hunters who submit an elk sample, will receive a notification by mail regarding the age of the animal harvested.
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Willamette Valley waterfowl season is in full swing with most of the available ducks being mallards and other local birds although a few migrants are starting to arrive from the north. The weather usually plays a large role in the success of hunters on a given day, with the best conditions being on the onset of storms when birds are leaving the large water bodies and seeking shelter in vegetated areas along the edges of estuaries and lakes. Hunting on windy and rainy days can improve a hunt whereas the birds will fly lower to the ground, and easier to shoot.
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In North Willamette Watershed, bear and cougar are rare in Scappoose, east Trask, northeast Stott Mt. and Willamette units; populations are higher in north Santiam unit. The highest densities of bears in the South Willamette Watershed can be found in the Siuslaw and Indigo units.
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November is a good time of year to look for the American beaver, our state animal. While recreating along the Columbia River, look for trees beavers may have chewed or for a slide mark where a beaver slid into the water from the bank. To find beaver dams, try searching an area with a narrow passage where the water is slow moving. In Union County, watch for river otters and beaver along the Grande Ronde River. In the Coast Range, visit the Oregon Hatchery Research Center in Alsea where beavers are busy building in Fall Creek. In Linn County, look along the Santiam River.
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Vehicles in Oregon are at relatively low risk of colliding with a deer, according to State Farm Insurance claims data, the company has reported.
Using its data from the last half of 2006 and the first half of 2007, and motor vehicle registration counts by state from the Federal Highway Administration, State Farm estimates the chances of an Oregon vehicle colliding with a deer over the next 12 months at 1 in 295, which places the state 33rd nationwide.
During the last year, 2,064 of State Farm’s Oregon customers were involved in deer collisions, up 280 from the year before.
Leading the nation in frequency of deer collisions is West Virginia. The company estimates the chances of a West Virginia vehicle colliding with a deer over the next 12 months at 1 in 57. That is nearly three times more likely than one estimate of the possibility that a person will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service in 2008 and 5,000 times more likely than another approximation of the chance that an individual will be struck by lightning between now and a year from now.
The state in which deer-vehicle collisions are least likely is Hawaii (1 in 16,624). These incidents are ten times less likely in our 50th state than they are in any other state.
State Farm’s data shows the total number of deer-vehicle collisions in the United States has increased 6.3 percent over a year ago. State Farm policyholders were involved in 205,121 deer-related collisions between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, compared with 192,877 during the 12 months prior to that.
The average property damage cost of these incidents was just under $2,900, up 3 percent from a year ago.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there are approximately 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions annually in the United States, causing more than 150 fatalities and $1.1 billion in property damage.
These collisions are more frequent during the deer migration and mating season in October, November and December. The combination of growing deer populations and the displacement of deer habitat caused by urban sprawl is producing increasingly hazardous conditions for motorists and deer.
Here are tips on how to reduce the chances of a deer-vehicle collision involving your vehicle will be part of the story we tell in next year’s version of this news release:
– Remember that deer are most active between 6 and 9 p.m.
– Use high beam headlamps as much as possible at night to illuminate the areas from which deer will enter roadways.
– Keep in mind that deer often travel in herds – if you see one, there is a strong possibility others are nearby.
– Do not rely on car-mounted deer whistles. They don’t work.
– If a deer collision seems inevitable, attempting to swerve out of the way could cause you to lose control of your vehicle or place you in the path of an oncoming vehicle.
Shane Ullrich writes about the outdoors twice monthly for The New Era. Contact him at the American Barbershop, 1121 Main St., or at 367-8086.