by JOE CALLAHAN
Deer hunting season comes to a close in most of Ontario at the end of December and officials at the Ministry of Natural Resources report that there were 10 accidental shootings this season, none of them fatal.
“About half way through the second week, there were 10 guys who either shot themselves or had been shot by one of their hunting partners,” says Greg Borne, Conservation Officer at the Kemptville district office. “I thought that was a lot but when you look at the statistics, it’s about average.”
There were roughly 6,500 registered hunters. During the season 243 charges were laid and 435 warnings issued. Most of the infractions stem from hunters not carrying their licenses with them or not wearing an appropriate amount of hunter orange coloured clothing. Again, according to Borne, the number of infractions this year was on average compared to recent years.
Ministry regulations require hunters to wear an “orange garment” and head cover. “The hunter orange garment must cover a minimum of 400 square inches above the waist and be visible from all sides,” the regulations state.
Borne also confirmed that when hunting large games such as deer, farmers must acquire hunting licenses to hunt on their own property unless they have received special permission to hunt nuisance species. Additionally, to hunt on farmers’ property, hunters must have explicit permission from the property owner.
A summary of hunting regulations in Ontario can be found here. BF
Comments
l have come to believe responsible hunters are as rare as white deer.
Have had my property posted for years and continue to see evidence of hunters trespassing without permission.Finally this deer hunting season l put a trail camera near a entre point to my bush and caught a couple of hunters walking past a NO-hunting sign, no more than 5 feet from them and wearing no orange whatsoever.My suspicions are that they don't want to be seen by the property owners whose land they are tresspassing on!
Definately be getting another trail camera, l imagine they would be good in a court case.
Seen a picture in our farm paper that showed 4 or 5 people going out hunting and 2 had back packs on that wasn,t orange and it likely wasn,t legal. Guess when hunting I better keep my eye out for a camera.LOL
You are 100% correct. It is the same thing in the north of Woodstock area every year with the same gang. They will cheat, sneak and lie to get an easy kill. Every year they come with the same bs injured deer story. As an avid bow and black powder hunter, these cheaters make it hard for us to find places to enjoy our sport. I would like to see the shotgun season eliminated as I see no sport in cornering deer and killing them.
Trespassers are a huge problem. My gang hunts (during the controlled) as many as 28 property's in a given year. We have a problem with our neighbors who have more recently come from the city, they have purchased 1 acre lots. They get all their friends together who know nothing about the area and they walk through peoples back yards with loaded guns, we get calls from our neighbors with a respectable amount of land during the November hunt,(we hunt the December hunt) asking us to help them keep the trespassers at bay. Unfortunately they hand out hunting licenses like candy. Smaller classes and strict testing I'm afraid is the solution. There was a time when all classes were taught by an experienced hunter in his garage, or basement. Now most classes are taught at sporting stores mostly supervised by minimum wage city employees. Also if you don't own land to hunt on you should not be able to purchase a tag, that or have a land owner put their name on the line for you to be eligible to enter the bush with a gun. I also bow hunt, not that I don't enjoy it but it's more like meditation, and for most, all about the big buck (that tastes like crap). The shot gun hunt is where it's at. I welcome any comments. My name is Jennifer Morley please do not publish my phone number
I,m a farmer, landowner and every year there are people that when caught will say I am on their land or someone else land. All I can say is there is ones out there that think they should go where ever to hunt or throw their garbage , or cut trees and walk on because they figure that it is not your home and they have the right to do whatever on it.
Gangs are no different they throw a few dogs on it and line up on some ones else property to shoot the deer and laugh at you because they got a deer.
It is them that bring in a lot of city dwellers or people that would not own an acre of land so they have 10 or more people in their gang and brag about shooting 10 or more deer and together they likely own 5 acres.
So in the end I end up fighting people to stay off my land so I can get a deer which by the way they feed off my land and stay there year round and be called greedy because I want to get a deer on MY LAND, so that is my opinion on GANG HUNTING or TRESPASSERS .
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