# What some do for bands!



## Leo Porcello (Jul 10, 2003)

*This was on the fuge a while back. I think most of us love

to get bands especially when you walk up to a dead bird and you see it

there unexpectedly on the leg. But the below confirms there are pigs

amongst us that will do anything for that piece of metal or plastic. With

the season coming upon us keep your eyes open and please report all the

poaching pigs you encounter!! Sorry it is double spaced but I did that so

people would not have to scroll left and right for each sentence.*

Below are two photos I received last week from some hunters in my

area. They took these photos a few years ago at the home of another

hunter. The hunter that owned the bands had been caught by MDWFP and

USFWS officers shooting banded geese from the public road with a high-

powered rifle. It is obvious by the pictures, that the day he got caught

was not his first time to snipe banded geese.

Following is part of an article I wrote for the Mississippi Wildlife

Enforcement Officer's Association magazine:

Quote:
With the increasing numbers of lesser snow geese in North America and

the liberal bag limits and longer seasons, some hunters are finding

themselves setting out goose decoys in hopes of bagging a few birds.

There are also other "hunters" out there looking for snow geese, but they

have a different method when it comes to taking the white and blue

waterfowl. I hear one or two stories each year in my area about goose

hunters who were lying among their snow goose decoys and were shot at

by a road hunter with a high-powered rifle. Talk on the waterfowl

message boards on the net shows that I am not the only one who has

heard such tales. Many people have been shot at or know people who

regularly shoot at snows with rifles from the road or have seen a pickup

truck full of shotgunners drive into a flock of geese and unload on them.

It goes without saying that some people just can't stand the temptation of

passing by 10,000 snows standing 50 yards from the county road and not

shooting at them. The evidence is obvious most of the time; shotgun hulls

in the road and dead snow geese scattered across the field. The sheer

numbers of snow geese that often congregate near the road is too easy a

target and most road hunters don't bother to retrieve the geese that they

shoot. A few weeks ago, one of my local farmers told me that he counted

17 dead snows and blues beside the road in one of his flooded rice fields.

But some people are not out for target practice; they are after the prize

that some of these birds wear around their necks and feet. In a field of

several thousand birds, there's bound to be one or two geese that are

banded. The brightly colored neck bands show up from quite a distance

and a scoped, high-powered rifle is what many of these "band snipers"

are using to locate and dispatch these birds. Taking a bird with a leg band

is 99% chance and the hunter usually doesn't see the band until the bird

is in hand. However, the high-vis neck bands are easy to spot and usually

mean the bird has a leg band also. Talk among Delta waterfowlers is that

it is quite common for their friends or camp members to take a mid-day

ride through the surrounding fields in search of neck-banded geese to

shoot. Banded birds are the "trophy bucks" of the waterfowl world.

But the alarming news is that there are just as many legal hunters that

have been shot at inadvertently by road-hunting goose poachers. I

received a phone call last winter from a Batesville hunter who was looking

for places to hunt geese. During the conversation he told me that the last

time that he hunted, they were lying amidst about 1,000 decoys and

someone shot several times into their decoys from the road with a rifle.

Another hunter told me that they were walking up a ditch to shoot some

geese last winter and peeked over the ditchbank to look at the geese.

When they peeked over the bank, he noticed a vehicle on the road

scoping the geese and the hunters immediately hit the deck. The subject

in the vehicle shot soon after into the nearby flock of geese. These

stories, thankfully, did not end in tragedy, but some have. In Bennett

County, South Dakota in the fall of 2004, two hunters had put out three

dozen decoys in a millet field. The victim was lying among the decoys in a

goose shell decoy, commonly known as a "goose chair". His hunting

partner was lying on a plastic sled about six feet away. The 51 year-old

shooter had previously been targeting feeding geese from the road and

when he drove by these hunters and their decoys, he looked through his

binoculars and determined that the decoys were live geese. The shooter

drove down the road to a point closer to the decoys, then exited his

vehicle and fired two rifle shots from the road. One shot penetrated the

goose chair and struck the 39 year-old victim in the head causing a fatal

injury.

On November 25th, 2005, I was out checking waterfowl hunters south of

Crowder. I had been on my atv since sunrise and was preparing to check

one last group of hunters around 11 AM. I pulled up to the entrance of

their field and was not sure about the depth of the water as they had used

a boat to access their pit. I cut my atv off and waited for a moment. I

then heard a rifle shot behind me and the deafening roar of a flock of

snow geese as they arose from the ground. I knew exactly what had

happened and I raced my atv down the road in the direction of the shot.

As I approached the general area of the shot, I saw a pickup heading

north on a blacktop road. The vehicle stopped, a subject exited and

began walking across a flooded field. I observed the subject pick up a

couple of geese in the field and I headed in their direction. As I

approached the vehicle, it began to pull away, leaving the other subject in

the field alone. I was able to pull the truck over and found a Ruger 270

on the passenger seat, beneath a hunting coat, still loaded. The subject in

the field turned and walked in our direction, leaving the geese as they

lay. I recovered a spent .270 casing from the truck and got written

confessions from both the shooter and the driver. I also recovered 3

snow geese and 1 white-fronted goose from the field. Neither the shooter

or the driver had state or federal waterfowl stamps. As of this date, the

case has not gone to trial, but if found guilty of all charges, the total fines

will be in excess of $1500.00.

I can't imagine the man hours that went into banding the birds that lost

the collars in these pictures. Think of all of the data wasted as I'm sure

none of these were reported. And it's not fair for you fellas that hunt

legally and bust your butts to take birds, for a road-hunting poacher to

take hundreds of banded birds out of the flocks in this manner.

My count (zoomed in larger photos in my files) is 145 neck collars and

141 leg bands (some of the leg bands I couldn't count b/c they were

behind neck collars in the photo). That's more collars and bands than 2

dozen of us could ever take legally in our lifetimes.

I write all of this to say that wildlife law enforcement needs the help of

hunters to stop this dangerous and wasteful practice. By reporting these

poachers you may end up saving the life of a fellow hunter someday. In

Mississippi, you can call 1-800-BE-SMART to report wildlife violations. If

you live in another state, find their wildlife violation phone # and keep it

handy. With most of us having a cell phone on us 24/7, there is no reason

not to call.

You fellas stay safe out there and help us keep our beloved sport honest

and ethical by not tolerating poaching and slob hunters.


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## Watchm! (Jul 9, 2005)

I have a warden friend from Arkansas.
A few years back he busted a ring of thirteen guys.
They all pitched in 100 bucks. At the end of the season the one that got the most bands took the pot.
The first guy he busted was right off the blacktop with his .223 and a serious scope.
The poacher boasted how he liked it when they leapfrogged so he could see more bands. :eyeroll:


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## tumblebuck (Feb 17, 2004)

Get a rope.


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## WingedShooter7 (Oct 28, 2005)

:eyeroll: uke: uke: :eyeroll:


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## jb (Feb 8, 2005)

call me crazy but if you want bands that bad can you not just buy them on ebay I mean who wants to loose a hunting rights becase you want a band what kind of memory is that. That right there is what give hunters a bad name because they will lump that craphead with us as a hunter

so their I was in my ford blind hunting my favorite gravel road where their is was a badded snow came right in about 200yrd out....... :eyeroll:

wow dad can you tell me the story one more time :lol:


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## alwayshuntin (Sep 16, 2006)

that makes me sick i have never got a band but dont want one shot with a rifle from the road.


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## Canada_Hunter (Mar 21, 2004)

> but if found guilty of all charges, the total fines
> 
> will be in excess of $1500.00.


 :eyeroll: thats ridiculous


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## callingeese (Aug 31, 2006)

:eyeroll: :eyeroll: There is nothing more that ****** me off then hunters like that . All the work involved in decoying geese and these a-holes shoot into decoy spreads, how stupid can you be!! Notice to in the pictures that there is no white collars, becuase they are alot harder to see from a long distance away. What I would give to meet those guys in a dark alley!! Thanks for the post. Hope alot more hunters watch out for these idiots.


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## Top Flight Waterfowling (Oct 21, 2004)

Thats just sick, them guys should perminately have to wear tight fitting over sized human neck collars saying im an idiot and 100 pound leg bands on both of the feet for the rest off there lives and they cant take them off, how sad. No wonder why I can never get a neck collar. :eyeroll:


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## ADN (Sep 27, 2005)

There needs to be more at stake than a $1500 fine. Can't the Feds enforce against that? Take away lifetime priveleges to hunt? A couple years in jail?

These guys are guilty of alot more than illegally taking waterfowl.

There is a huge difference between people who make the accidental mistake such as forgetting their license in their vehicle and people who purposely break the law. There needs to be more severe penalties for people who intentionally and blatantly break hunting and fishing regulations.


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## duckhuntinfool (Oct 24, 2006)

its makes me furious people like that. they give us other hunters the bad wrap to. i have hunted for years now and never shot a banded anything but i would NEVER do something like that :******:


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