Ca. Teens caught Poaching

(using a spotlight to attract deer) LOL ill have to try that some day!

Punks! :>/

should be a year for each animal killed and also their cahunas!!!!

the max that they will get is 6months in jail and $1,000 fine, wow if that 's what it coast to kill thirteen deer count me in i wanna kill 13 deer for that price.

It's disheartening that they killed so many deer and are being fined such a small amount. It would be nice to see a much larger fine, something along the lines of 1000.00 per animal.

The parents should be held as accountable as the kids. How were they able to take rifles out of their home and drive away with them at night? Ugh... man that sucks.

Edit: They should be banned from hunting and possessing a firearm for life. Who am I to say that though...

Banned for life and loss of gun right for poaching deer as a kid?You must be the one guy in this world that didnt pull some stupid stunts as a teenager,not getting caught dont count either.Lots of reactionarys here that think poaching a deer should be a capital crime,years in jail and loss of your 2nd amendment rights is just slightly overkill dont ya think?How bout loss of hunting rights for 3 years and 1000 hours of community service requiring them to help restore habitat,work in an animal rehab center,pick up trash in the field and remove all those road kill deer laying along our highways?Just throwing some kid in jail isnt the anwser,you wanna turn a dumb kid into a real criminal?You want you taxs raised so we can pay to build new prisons to house every poacher caught?Think before you over-react.After 1000 hours of picking weeds and helping to restore deer habitat they would be a lot less likley to do it again,throw em in jail and they will do it again out of spite.

They should be banned from hunting and possessing a firearm for life. Who am I to say that though
Typical Ca attitude.

picking up road kill. I LIKE THAT IDEA

Unfortunately the dollar fines will probably hit the parents not them. The dollar amount should be at least $1000 per and they should be reqiured to work that off as well. I would like to see loss of hunting privileges for 5 years and an additional 1000 hours public services. You gots to pay for your crime as a stupid teenager or whatever you are.

To me this is more than just a stupid teenager stunt because of the scale and effect of the crime. I little different than running through the neighbors freshly laid sod with the CJ5.

I would really love to see a national loss of hunting privileges inacted.

They scrape 20 deer a week off my city streets,should we punish those drivers with a loss of driveres liscence and jail time?They already have a huge network of states that honor the loss of hunting rights punishment,most judgements tell them they are not allowed to hunt ANYWHERE while they are on probation.Taking away the hunting rights from a POACHER probably isnt going to stop the from hunting anyways,they will just make sure they dont get caught the next time.We find dead bucks with just the head removed almost every year,we never hear about a poacher getting caught with just a head.1000 hours of hard labor will prevent more offenders from reoffending than a big fine.

A auto/deer accident is a far cry from a mass thrill killing of a dozen deer. I don't get your comparrison on that at all.

I will go along with you on the community service but with a significant dollar fine in the package.

And no we do not need to build bigger jails but if your telling me that a cereal poacher for instance does not qualify for both criminal felony and jail time than brother we will never be on the same page.

Now, I know this is about some really really dumb teenagers and on a case by case basis that deserves a different look but if the reward is greater than the risk they will take the risk the majority of the time.

It's been some time since I've visited the site.

I respect your opinion NONYA but I'm having a hard time trying to understand your view on this situation. Might be my "typical Ca. attitude". Not sure.

Have a great day :)

Daveytech, I have to agree with NONYA on this one. The best form of punishment for teens is labor, and what better punishment for poaching than labor requiring them to be outside improving habitat and wildlife? As has been mentioned, monetary fines will only be picked up by their coddling parents, and they will not learn a thing. Prison/jail time does little to deter them either, or why else would they be doing it in the first place? Educate these criminals through hard labor. After countless hours of service trying to restore what they undid, maybe they will gain an appreciation for wildlife and nature. Had I been caught doing anything similar to this as a teen my dad told me he would have let me rot in jail and wouldn't have bailed me out. Then once my jail time was up I guarantee you he would have had me do additional community service (all this after an almost certain butt whoopin' too)!

All teenagers have is time. When they have too much they use it to get into trouble (gangs, sex, drugs, shoplifting, poaching, you name it). The kids who play sports and work part time jobs don't have time to go out "spotlighting" deer because after they close up at Burger King, they have to go home and read Hamlet for their English class the next day (my wife teaches high school English ](*,) ).

These kids obviously had too much time on their hands and I have to agree in theory with Nonya that the best way to handle this situation would be a stearn monetary fine plus forcing them to contribute back to society by rebuilding habbitat and working with BLM or Fish and Game officers that will make them do physical labor and help them to realize the value of what they have taken away. I also think the side benefit from this punishment is that the kids will not only be working their butts off and learning work ethic, but they may also find that they are interested in the habbitat or the animals and may find a career path in those fields interesting. It could be just the thing to get them on track as humans. You never know.

As far as the fines being paid by the parents, I can tell you that if my parents had ever had to pay a fine for me, it would have been considered a loan with a minimum of 10% interest and on top of the community service I would have had to get a job and pay them back with juice.

GPWDeer

All poaching should bring FELONY charges!!!!!

Fellas,

I can appreciate your passion for wildlife and the outdoors and and believe me, I too share in that passion. However, before you all rush to judgement on these two youngsters, remember that things in life aren't always black and white and not all kids that poach fit into one nice tidy category. If you're like me you can look back on your adolescent years and see some bad choices and some good choices. Some of us didn't get caught when we made these bad choices, but some kids did. Should we condemn only the kids who get caught and write them off as bad seeds that should lose all rights and privelages for the rest of their lives? I hope not.

I happen to know of one of these youngsters and I can tell you that this case isn't one of these spoiled rich kids with nothing to do type situations. The background of this kid is a very complex one and if you knew it, it would be no great mystery as to why he may have ended up doing these things. I'm not condoning this behavior, but I'm just saying that it's not all cut and dry.

In my opinion, even good kids can do bad things. And some of those kids will get caught. This doesn't mean that they will always be bad. I did things that I'm not proud of while growing up (and didn't get caught), but I still learned a valuable lesson from those times. Today, I feel that I'm a respectful human being who has a great love and passion for wildlife and the outdoors (probably more so than that of the average person). This is due to the fact that I'm a good person at heart and I grew out of my adolescence. By all accounts these are good kids who made very poor decisions. I feel that they should be punished for these acts through community service and habitat work, not through extravagant fines and lifetime bans of hunting privelages. This is my opinion.

DD

I'm probably overreacting with the lifetime bans. I take it very personally when someone poaches my deer. In my experience, California deer herds are in bad shape and poaching not just one, but a dozen deer is just absolutely terrible and tragic to me. Not that this crime would be any less tragic anywhere else. I'm glad that they have been caught. (To answer NONYA's earlier question: I have never poached an animal and never will.)

Deer hunting in California is very hard as it is. It just got that much more difficult.

I agree that locking them up is not the right choice. I would like to see them "work it off" by restoring habitat, or something along those lines. I really couldn't care less if the parents have to pay massive fines either. It's their responsibility to control the actions of their children. This situation is an example of what happens when there is a complete lack of responsibility on both sides.

In response to Duckdude: No matter what variables are involved in this childs life, it was their decision to kill these animals. They know right from wrong. I wish I could use my bad childhood as an excuse for my shortcomings, but I don't. There is absolutely no excuse.

I get worked up just thinking about this. Maybe I'm being too emotional about it.

September can't get here soon enough :)

Alright I haven't been here for a while so I am just catchin up but since I am from California, it hits home with me also. As Daveytech said, deer hunting in Cali sucks already and the bottom line is these kids knew when they killed and (don't forget) cut out the choice meat, exactly what they were doing. Now I might be all for the idea of community service invloving habitat restoration or some other wildlife project, but the sad fact is that California does not spend any money on Wildlife. Our sportsmans money goes to the general fund. So if the judge sentenced them to some sort of community service, more than likely, there wouldn't even be any project for them to serve on, and also no one to supervise them. So being that they are from Cali, and that our jails and prisons are overcrowded as it is, I think that they should be farmed out to Utah (where I hunt) and given AT LEAST 1000 hours of community service, and pay $1,000.00 per animal, and even if mom and dad aren't rich, that's what a second job is for (been there done that)!