POACHING GETTING A LOT WORSE, FAST!
I am talking about the ‘modern day’ POACHER of the very worst kind. The lads with their dogs and the fella with a rifle pulling their car up for a quick shot at something 150 yards off a quiet road are bad enough but they are never going to do the serious kind of damage as the people I detail here.
HERE, I am talking about those of you out there with the modern day tech. that allows you to wander over land you have no permission or right to be on, killing anything and everything, literally sweeping it clean.
It’s easy enough today.
The Police were STUPID years ago ‘caving in’ and allowing sound moderators to anyone and everyone. ALL they needed to do was say ‘NO, use ear defenders at the point of shot if you are genuinely THAT concerned about your hearing’.
Manufactures and retailers are GREEDY jumping onto anything that will make a good profit, regardless of consequence. In this instance Night Vision and lately THERMAL imaging optics, hand held units and even rifle scopes.
I KNOW most of the land I have permission to shoot over has been ‘swept clean’ and I do mean SPOTLESS where quarry is concerned. A LOT of the time I no longer go out stalking, I simply go for a walk with a rifle on my shoulder. When you can take 2 or 3 hours searching every field boundary and woodland edge with binoculars, from a viewpoint covering approx. 270 degrees and out to a mile plus and see NOTHING, not a Hare, not a Fox and certainly no Deer, not even many Rabbits, alarm bells start to ring. When you do it a few times with the same result you KNOW there is a MAJOR problem. Especially when it’s over land where I would usually see perhaps a dozen or more deer at any point in the day and very likely at least a couple of fox ‘paddling about’. Now NOTHING!
Go out on a night with a lamp after those now none existent Fox and again NOTHING!….ANYWHERE!
The land owner/s are all sure no one has been out without permission. They have seen no one, heard nothing.
It does not take a genius to realise the place is now barren and its not through natural causes. Animals don’t die on mass and leave no trace, a half decomposed carcase, even a pile of bones once nature recycles it is always there to be found for long enough and with the numbers involved on ‘my patch’ the place would have been ‘littered’.
My ‘theory’?
It’s far too easy to go poaching for the LAZY and GREEDY BASTARDS, ALL who DO and SHOULD know better!
Screw a half decent sound moderator onto your rifle, turn on the thermal scope and basically go where you like under cover of darkness. Miss NOTHING, the wrong side of a fence line and the ‘hot spot’ of a target will still show up. A slow walk through even half dense woodland and that black, white, red or whatever colour you choose giveaway silhouette will appear in view.
Take it to the extreme and you have people even loading up subsonic ammunition or simply using a .22 rimfire so even the shot is hardly, if at all noticeable 100 yards away (let alone sat behind double glazing with the TV or other background noise usually going on when night falls and you’re finished for the day or even tucked up in bed)!
With the gear readily available today and a basic level of skill and understanding its easily possible to get within a few feet let alone yards of an animal and simply ‘pop a cap’ straight between its eyes. ‘Goodnight’, ‘Thank you very much’, ‘There’s another ££££? in my pocket, let’s keep going as there are another three over there’.
Apparently I am far from alone. Within the business I am getting more and more calls from customers, sadly, relaying a similar story. Where once they had good to excellent numbers of deer to be found large areas are now empty.
One customer from Scotland is catching syndicate ‘stalkers’ in leases from woodland next to his open hillside almost every time he goes out. Fully dressed up like SAS / USMC sniper ‘wanna be’s’ in full camouflage fatigues, face veils the lot, clearly sneaking about, rifles not in a slip, loaded and ready to use at any opportunity, trying to get into deer off their land. When caught claiming they are apparently ‘just taking a short cut to the other side to help a mate drag out an animal he has just shot’ in the woodland a mile away. MMMMM.
Another client in Eire with a VERY similar situation.
To a large degree the VAST MAJORITY of those of you who also ‘spout off’ about having Out of Season and Night Shooting Authority AGAIN, more often than not because you simply do not have the time, skill or level of knowledge and experience to do the job properly in the first place. Greed also plays a large part. Far too many take on far too much land when they simply do not have the time to do themselves, the land owner or the deer justice. It’s all well and good telling everyone you ‘manage deer’ over 14,000 acres but when you go shooting perhaps once a month, during fine weather ALL that you do is stop GENUINE people, who would be on the ground 3 times a week and more, from getting access and doing the job even 30% properly.
ANY Firearms Licensing Officer reading this a suggestion:
Just as shooting club members are checked for attendance on ranges why not do the same with certificate holders whose only ground is part of a syndicate 200, 300 and 400 miles away from home. Check in with the lease provider / holder / syndicate captain and see just how often these people ACTUALLY turn up to shoot on the land AT ALL let alone regularly. The term ‘GOOD REASON TO POSSESS’ springs to mind!
Poaching is ALWAYS going to happen. The trouble these days is that with the equipment available they are leaving NOTHING. Nothing to breed, nothing to repopulate, nothing to even go out to look at never mind shoot for years to come.
If you are reading this and your one of them I hope you feel REALLY GOOD about yourself.
WELL DONE YOU.
HOPEFULLY you will slip one day soon and snap your nasty greedy little neck and do all, wild life included, a MASSIVE favour. YOU are NOT Sportsmen, NOT Stalkers, NOT Deer Managers. You do not deserve to own a catapult let alone a gun.
