Fake Tags, Cock Fighting Paraphernalia & Taxidermy Confiscated In California Poaching Ring Bust 🚔

If you’re still with us, that means you’ve made it to the middle of yet another week.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get another mid-week dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about so far this week:

• Jail time, boys - Sophisticated poaching ring brought to justice ⚖️

• Pigs are getting smarter - In Kentucky at least, where you can no longer hunt ‘em 🐗

• Killing in the name of - First bear in Connecticut killed in the name of self defense 🔫

• Elk are trampling our kids - Estes Park was the scene of not one, but two elk attacks in the past week 🧒

• Piebald…shark? - Yup, caught off the coast of Florida 🦈

  Thanks for following along. Don't forget to tell your friends.

DO NOT PASS GO
FAKE TAGS, COCK FIGHTING PARAPHERNALIA, TAXIDERMY AND AMMO CONFISCATED IN CALIFORNIA POACHING RING BUST

A sophisticated poaching ring was brought to justice, resulting in the arrest, prosecution, fines and jail terms for seven California men.

The investigation kicked off when state wildlife officers received a number of tips from the public regarding some suspected poaching in the southern Los Padres National Forest. As the investigation matured, officials began to notice an incredibly large amount of replacement licenses and hunting tags issued from one particular CDFW license vendor.

Working alongside the Ventura County District Attorney’s Environmental Protection Unit, it was later revealed that the accused men conspired with the clerk at a market to fraudulently obtain a number of additional tags that would allow them to exceed regular big game hunting limits. It was found that the seven men obtained 87 licenses, tags and other entitlements fraudulently and used them to illegally take wildlife.

🐷 Hunting pigs is making them smarter - That’s the sentiment in the great state of Kentucky as law makers finalized a ban on hog hunting statewide after passing a vote last December. According to the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), hunting hogs tends to make them smarter, causing feral swine to go nocturnal and disperse even further across the landscape.

While one solution certainly doesn’t fit all when it comes to pig hunting, Kentucky’s wildlife director Ben Robinson told the commission that hunting hogs “goes against what we’re trying to do with our trapping efforts by educating these pigs, making them much more difficult to trap. We’re having a lot of success with our partners in trapping these animals and keeping them out of Kentucky. So by allowing landowners to just shoot freely—that goes against what we’re trying to do.” 

Kentucky is one of a number of states that does not consider wild pigs a game animal but who’s regulations are a stark contrast to those in states like Texas and Colorado. In fact, Colorado was able to wipe out their wild hogs completely in 2022 by encouraging residents to shoot where and whenever possible. While one thing might work in one state, there’s no guarantee that it will work in another, and therein lies the beauty of state-managed wildlife. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

🔫 First case of self-defense - Just because you can’t hunt bears, doesn’t mean you can’t shoot them. Well, at least in Connecticut. After last Summer’s contentious debate around bear management, state officials announced that although they were not going ahead with a hunting season, they would allow residents to shoot the overpopulated bruins in self-defense.

In a ruling that was made to appease rather than appall bear advocates, it solidified Connecticut as the only state in the northeast that houses a healthy bear population but is without a hunting season. 

Fast forward a few months and we’ve now got what is believed to be the state’s first self-defense case on the books. Earlier this week, a Connecticut man shot and killed a 450 lb black bear northeast of Hartford. According to the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, who is conducting the investigation, the bear was killed after "reportedly feeding at an unsecured dumpster".

🧒 Kids attacked by elk - In a pair of extremely rare attacks, two children in the past week have been attacked by cow elk in Estes Park. Located about 65 miles northwest of Denver, Estes Park is known for its elk and is one of the best places in the country to get an up-close-and-personal look at them. 

Last week a cow elk charged an 8-year-old girl who was riding her bike from roughly 60 yards away and later placed her in hospital for treatment. On Monday of this week, another cow elk charged a 4-year-old boy as he was swinging at Stanley Park playground. The animal was chased off by the parents and the boy too was treated for his injuries and released.

While these types of stories are typical of tourists and influencers getting too cozy with wildlife, it seems as though these two encounters were unprovoked. Officials stated that in both of these cases, the children were doing nothing to provoke the animals, but that they should serve as a stark reminder about the importance of giving them their space during the calving season.

VIDEO // ^{_{SOME THINGS JUST HAVE TO BE SEEN}}

🎣 “Do you want your ticket now or later?”: Watch as it’s approaching closing time on a privately-owned reservoir in Southern California and a sheriff’s boat wheels up on a group of fishermen and reminds them that the lake is closing over the bullhorn. They risk the ticket and take one last cast but it’s worth it..(and they don’t give them a ticket).

🦈 Piebald shark caught in Florida: While we’re relatively used to piebald deer and the like, one Florida shark fisherman caugth something totally rare this past week. Working the Gulf for some big Bulls, Florida angler Jack Appleton pulled in a piebald lemon shark, one he called his ‘coolest shark to date'.