It's infuriating.
In York County, a teenage bowhunter driving down a back road spots a monster buck. It's seven days before archery season but he stalks the 16-point trophy and kills it.
At least four legitimate hunters had been scouting and hunting the deer lawfully over several years and local landowners loved seeing the magnificent animal.
In the Poconos, the body of a 600-pound black bear is found dumped in a game lands parking lot two months before bear season. The bear, around 7 years old, had been shot in the head.
Both of these acts of poaching happened last September. Both are despicable. And now, finally, we will soon have penalties on the books that just might make "thrill killers" and commercial poachers think before robbing the rest of us of natural resources.
Gov. Ed Rendell on Friday signed a tough new poaching law that's been two years in the making and brings Pennsylvania's heretofore lightweight penalties into line with most other states.
"It's no longer Mickey Mouse penalties. The average guy who is thinking about shooting a deer at night will think twice," says state Rep. Ed Staback of Lackawanna County, who captained the bill through sometimes rough seas.
"This new law will treat these shooters like the serious criminals they are."
For example, someone illegally jacklighting a deer or shooting one out of season will soon get at least a $1,000 fine &tstr; up from the current $200 to $300 &tstr; and possibly face up to a year in jail.
Shooting other big game, or more than one deer, will now be at least misdemeanor crimes, rather than parking-ticket type offenses, and in some cases felonies.
For the first time, jail time comes with the most heinous poaching crimes and convicted shooters will lose hunting privileges not just for a year or two, but in blocks of five and ten years at a time.
Staback, who had pushed for even tougher fines and penalties than found in the bill's final version, sees a disturbing acceleration in "thrill kills," and thinks commercial poachers who deal in the black market trade for bear organs have been targeting Pennsylvania's prolific bear population because of nickel-ante penalties.
"Before, you could kill every whitetail deer in the state and only face a summary offense," he said. "Too many are willing to write off fines as a cost of doing business and have brazenly told wildlife conservation officers to their face that they will be back."
"Taking of wildlife illegally is theft," Staback said. "It not only gives a black eye to our sport, it takes opportunities away from hunters and those who view wildlife, as well as depletes the population of Pennsylvania's outdoor resources."
The Pennsylvania Game Commission, which had strong input in shaping the bill throughout, praised its passage.
The myth that most poachers are killing game to feed families is almost never the case, said Carl Roe, the agency's executive director.
"Most often, poaching today is committed by criminals driving $30,000 vehicles, using expensive night-vision technology, illegal silencers and firearms," he said. "Most commonly, the causes are simply greed, obsessive behavior in collecting antlers.
"In some cases, poachers take great pride in their infamous status in local communities. A disturbing and increasingly common cause is killing simply for thrill with no intention of making use of any part of the animal."
The bill also took some of the officers' discretion out of mistaken kills.
A deer that is shot and turns out not to meet antler requirements, or a second turkey shot accidentally, for example, will be treated as a mistaken kill with a processing fee paid, but no chance of the hunter later being socked with a "negligent" kill decision by a wildlife conservation officer and a stiffer fine.
In the end, the bill received the blessings of a broad range of sportsmen's organizations and the National Rifle Association, as well as an unlikely ally in The Humane Society of the United States, which usually sits on the opposite side of the fence on hunting issues.
Staback, however, found fault with the NRA when it sought &tstr; and succeeded &tstr; to water down some of the penalties for not reporting mistaken kills and a penalty of lifetime losses of firearms for poaching incidents.
Such seizures, the NRA felt, violated one's "constitutional right to bear arms." Staback is an NRA member.
The anti-poaching bill will become law in 60 days from July 9.
Another bill awaiting movement in the legislature is one that would make Pennsylvania a member of the 34-state Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact.
If Pennsylvania joins, poachers that lose their hunting privileges in the state would not be allowed to hunt in other member states, as well.
•••
The two poaching cases mentioned at the top of this story, in addition to stating the case for stronger crackdowns, are interesting in their own right as detective cases.
For example, in the case of the York County 16-point buck, an outraged community stepped forward and helped put York County WCO Chad Eyler and deputy WCO Robert Simmonds on the trail of Eugene Sponseller Jr,. 19, of East Berlin.
Sponseller claimed to have killed the trophy class buck during the open archery season in Lycoming County.
But what sealed the poacher's fate was a West Manchester Township policeman who brought Eyler a set of 14-point antler sheds that were found in early 2009 about 1 mile from where the 16-point buck was believed killed.
Members of the Pennsylvania Deer Association paid to have the DNA from both sets of antlers analyzed at the Northeast Wildlife DNA Laboratory.
That proved the antlers came from the same deer.
Sponseller was found guilty of various charges and was fined $1,100 and ordered to pay $5,000 in replacement costs.
The 16-pointer scored just shy of 176 and would have ranked 16th-best in Pennsylvania in 2009 for a nontypical buck by bow.
The whole experience made Eyler proud.
"All these entities came together and said, 'No, this is not right.' This is the perfect example of the abuse of our resources."
In the bear-poaching incident in Wayne County, the case likely would not have been cracked except for a serendipitous event.
A month after the 600-pound bruin was found dumped in a game lands parking lot, Lehigh Township police officers stopped Raymond Carl Kresge Sr. of Gouldsboro for driving without a license.
They happened to notice bear hair on the bumper and contacted the regional office of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
DNA testing of the hair proved it was from the dumped bear.
Kresge Sr., 66, and his son, Carl Kresge, 40. have been charged with killing the bear.
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/265593