Doc

Sorry, I didn't see it. But it is probably good that it was re-posted anyway. That page adds a whole lot of insight into how the DEC is thinking these days. Frankly, I can't comment on whether the numbers sound reasonable or not. I can't imagine what a layman would ever base that opinion on other than blind faith.

I think I got my point across. Useless speculation without facts is exactly that.....useless speculation.

Yeah, like I said there are absolutely no undiscovered ideas that are any good. They've all been discovered .....right? That's the kind of forward thinking that we all need.

That snow sure is tracked up a lot.

The DEC has produced a page that addresses reporting rates and how they are calculated. They also have written a rebuttal to the plan that I have described. Check it out and see if you agree with them. You will find it at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/47738.html On that same page you will find a stat that directly addresses your feeling about "gross under-reporting". The figure that they arrived at was that the calculated "reporting rate" was 45% in 2006. Less than half of all hunters report their kills even though it is the law. Now if that isn't gross under-reporting, then I don't know what is. It is all very interesting, and I encourage everyone to read that page. It's not very long. Come up with your own conclusions.

That's kind of like saying everything has already been invented, so anything thought of from this point forward can't possibly work.

If in fact you do know it for a fact: "The toll-free hotline number is 1-844-DEC-ECOS (1-844-332-3267). It will be staffed around the clock and connect callers to a DEC police dispatcher." Here's the deal.... the burden of proof is not on you. It is the DEC's responsibility to conduct an investigation. Sometimes that investigation consists of things that go on in a covert way that may not be known to the complainant. At any rate, a complaint is on record, and we really have no way of knowing exactly what the DEC is going to eventually do with that info. Just because you cannot produce the "smoking gun" doesn't mean that you should simply ignore illegal acts when you know they have been committed. You never know, this guy may have another report pending that your complaint will lend credibility to. However, the point that I was making was that there is a lot of neighborhood gossip that we accept as fact and then repeat it as fact (such as in internet forums). If it is truly a known fact, then it should be reported. If it isn't a personally known fact then it should not be stated as such in a discussion.

Those guys at Penn State really do some cool stuff!

Here's the problem with buying land based on verbal or written agreements regarding carcass recovery permissions. You can have a change of ownership take place the day after you close on your property and find an unfriendly new owner that essentially turns the property into "useless" for hunting. Particularly with a bow where you are almost guaranteed that the deer will run a ways before plopping down.

Don't you just love the way these laws are written up ..... lol. Go ahead and shoot, and we will determine on a case by case basis whether we will arrest you or not. Hope you guessed right, Bunky.

Yeah, we might even find out that there really was no basis for the confiscation at all....lol. How about a real wild piece of speculation that opens the possibility that a neighbor was irritated by the sound of his constant target practice and conjured up a bogus report. How about the report was called in by a disgruntled ex-wife ..... lol. Or maybe it was one of those "dishonorable firemen" who placed an anonymous phone call. We all know how they are. My point is that we can speculate all we want to, but until and unless more details come out, we are stuck with the original story.

It might cost some jobs ..... great for Managers trying to balance the ever shrinking DEC resources. Or perhaps it might free up some of the talent for more jobs aimed at their actual training and education rather than simply being used as data collecting clerks.

That certainly is the implication of those replies that insist that there has to be something that has been left out of the story that would show that the confiscation was justifiable. Kind of like unjust confiscation is simply incredibly unlikely. Sometimes a news story is exactly all there is to a story.

Interesting bias that you have there against those people that have chosen an occupation where they put their life on the line for others. Kind of blindly all-encompassing and extremely ignorant, but interesting.

You are free to vote on anything that you feel you must, but keep in mind that this forum is not a democracy. Be careful what you ask for. You too might find yourself on the other end of that kind of vote.

Or maybe the story is exactly the way it was written. Why do we automatically assume that if a confiscation took place, it must have had some level of justification. That is like a juror being asked the question, "Can the fact that the police made an arrest keep you from rendering an impartial decision in this case?" That question is frequently asked for the very reason that often perspective jurors do believe that an arrest indicates wrong doing by those arrested. I find that same mentality is prevalent among a lot of people. I generally side with law enforcement, but never say or even suspect that they are infallible, especially when it comes to the enforcement of a brand new law that few really understand the details and legal assumptions involved.

Actually, there can be temporary acceptance of the law. After all it did pass and currently is part of the legal system. That of course does not mean that it is not still viewed with outrage. However, I do understand your point. The demonstrations have all disappeared. The New York State Outdoor News has gone silent on the issue. This forum has gone silent on the issue. All of the updates on whatever legal activity pro-gun groups have in the works have gone silent. I sense a gun-owner mood of having been beaten into submission. For some reason we believe that because Cuomo survived the election that we failed and were beaten. There is a strange effect of all the doom and gloom becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. We seem to have overlooked the fact that local races that excluded the impact of NYC, were by and large won by pro-gun forces, and a lot of gun control Politian's were sent packing. Does that mean that the battle is won or lost? No, this election should be viewed as a shot across the bow for legislators who might be considering further attempts on gun rights. Watching their buddies taking a hit for what they wrongly assumed was a penalty free action, I think has been shown to only be a safe gesture within NYC and other bastions of liberalism. Our outrage peaked a little early relative to the elections, or perhaps we could have gotten Cuomo too. But I will, for the time being, accept the changes of the face of NYS legislative make-up as being the first in what is hoped to be series of victories that will eventually lead to the gutting of the Safe Act. Yes, I am concerned that gun-owners feel defeated and beaten into submission. I am also unhappy that the issue has lost momentum and attention. I'm not sure how to re-kindle that fire. It also is not clear just what the next-steps should be. This is where we need some guidance from our gun advocacy organizations.... the brain-trust of the pro-gun movement.

I suspect that a few years from now you will look back at it all and say, "Thank-God". I pulled the plug myself on the long commutes and the crappy attitudes toward long-standing employees. The way I hear it, people no longer get a job with expectations of retiring from that same place. The object today is to get a cheap new employee and use them up until they start making too much money then it's time to be replaced by as cheap a new hire as possible ....quality be damned. It is happening everywhere and is now engrained as a true business culture change. Even knowing all that, it still always comes as a very unpleasant shock. It sounds to me that you have spent some preparation time and you should do just fine.

Again, I do not see how changes in that area would improve the integrity of the harvest reporting system. It probably is going over my head, or I'm misinterpreting something.

Even if there was some way of cramming all that coded info on those tiny little tags, the question still remains, "Why"? There is nothing about buying truckloads of scanners that makes people report. In fact since they now have to get in their cars and go somewhere to make reports, an argument could be made that the reporting rates would actually go down. understanding that there is there is nothing about scanning or any other way of collecting data that prevents falsifying reports, I see no reason to throw the baby out with the bath-water when that is not really necessary. We have all the hardware and most of the software already existing that does a great job of recording all the kill info in an already paid-for, unmanned, way, and almost all of it is already in computer just waiting for software additions and rules changes and someone at the DEC to hit the "on" button on their computers to churn out whatever info they need and even more if needed in the future (surveys and polls easily added to this style of reporting system if that is ever deemed useful). I have read nothing that provides any practical way of eliminating falsification. So why not change (add) some software, revise the reporting requirements and flip the switch. Save money, get nearly 100% compliance, keep our biologists from ramming all over the countryside checking this place and that for input and then taking more time to input that gathered info into computer-useful format, and then making statistical guesses at how many people broke the law by not reporting. I see big dollars saved in the process and almost complete compliance. Now, if they want to run some random spot-checks to see if data falsification really is a problem, that could be done. However, understand that that is a different side issue completely separate from the problem of non-compliance with mandatory harvest reporting laws. Perhaps cranking up penalties and making a few examples of those that are found voluntarily perjuring their reports, might just make that problem go away if in fact it is found to really be a significant enough real problem.

Anyone who is intent on falsifying hunting results can do that no matter what system you use short of in-person DEC road checks. And even with road checks, you are counting on hunters loading the deer onto their cars and carting them who knows how many miles just to perform a harvest report. If we are concerned about people illegally falsifying reports, imagine how many new instant home butchers would be created ... lol. So, there is really nothing guaranteeing that whatever you are scanning in has truthful info on it either. The real question is, "is lying on reports really a statistically significant problem". If so, there is no system that is sabotage-proof. Actually there is no way that a hunter can enter dates, gender, antler points, townships of kill, and all of the other info that we supply in bar-code form or even filled in dots. The forms would have to be huge to allow all the different variations of responses. So someone still has to read that hand-printed info from the scan and manually type it into computers for every report submitted. That is significant man-hours of labor, whereas, all of that info can currently be inputted directly into computer-useful ones and zeroes in current phone or computer hunter reports. And all with no expenses of purchase and maintenance of additional equipment, or any requirement that the hunter get in his car or even leave his home. As far as hard-copy receipts being a requirement for buying next year's license, remember that a lot of people receive their licenses through the mail without any face-to-face contact with a licensing agent.

Yeah, what's up with that? It can take a couple of inches of new snow and turn it into white-outs and drifts across the road. Not to mention the wind-chill effect when you're trying to do something outdoors.

Sometimes, a message with your phone number attached, pinned to the billboard of a local Laundromat or convenience store or supermarket entrance can be the most effective way to reach the locals that might have what you re looking for. It certainly is worth a try. Make up a bunch of copies and take a trip.

Not necessary. We have automated reporting systems that turn your voice or your computer inputs into ones and zeroes that require no manual computer inputting by DEC personnel. That's an ideal way of eliminating man-hours of labor and potential duplication errors. The systems are already in place and in a computer friendly format. All we need is incentive to comply.

I have already explained how to solve almost all of the compliance problem. No estimates, no guessing, just simple computer programming and rules changes.