Posted on 08/25/2011 1:37:53 PM PDT by xp38
In the latest example of the gap between Canadian and American views about polar-bear hunting, a Michigan man could face jail after pleading guilty to bringing home a mounted trophy of a bear he had legally shot in Nunavut a decade ago.
Rodger Dale DeVries, 73, entered a guilty plea this week to one count of illegally importing polar-bear parts.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
No statute of limitations? Or do “environmental crimes” rise to the level of murder?
...or the level of tax fraud?
His crime was smuggling the head home in 2007. He has plead guilty to that. Maximum sentence is 1 year in jail and $100 grand fine. He will likely get less but even so...
It appears he is charged with the importation of the mounted bear head and not with the shooting itself.
“Rodger Dale DeVries, 73, entered a guilty plea this week to one count of illegally importing polar-bear parts.”
and
“According to court documents, Mr. DeVries travelled to Nunavut in November, 2000, where he obtained a licence and polar-bear tag and paid an outfitter $12,500 to take him hunting.
After killing a bear, he had it mounted by a taxidermist in Calgary. Mr. DeVries then left it in storage with a friend there because he knew he couldn’t legally take it to the U.S.
In the summer of 2007, he went back to Calgary and moved the bear mount and its skull to a storage unit in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. From there, Mr. DeVries and his two grandchildren, both minors, took the trophy by boat to a tiny harbour in northern Michigan, then drove it home.”
I like this section at the end
Management of polar bears is a shared responsibility between Ottawa and the provinces and territories, with hunting tags issued by the Nunavut government.
A 2009 study by the Humane Society International and the International Fund for Animal Welfare argues that polar-bear trophy hunting is not an Inuit tradition but a recent phenomenon that contributes to less than one per cent of the Nunavut GDP.
Mr. Nirlungayuk said, however, that the tags sold to foreign hunters come out of a community’s quota so that trophy hunting doesn’t affect the number of harvested bears while bringing money to remote communities where the cost of living is high.
He also bristled at the idea of non-natives defining what constitutes the Inuit way of life.
“Who are they to say that it’s not traditional? It’s not traditional for you guys to be in a car. Should you be riding horses? Our culture has evolved.”
Why cant he have his bear head? Is this the same kind of enviornmental garbage that does not allow people to care for injured songbirds or pick up bluejay feathers?
Dam**d government regulatory agencies!
What a messy situation.
I am kind of curious about how the “authorities” found out about the mount getting into the USA.
Increasingly statutes of limitation are being altered to read “x number of years AFTER police become aware of a crime”. So if you do something wrong, and police never learn about it, you’re still on the hook because the limitation clock doesn’t start until after the police find out - rendering the statute of limitation basically null and void from a practical standpoint.
This is yet another lesson on why you must learn to eat what you kill and then clear your plate.
How did the revenuers even know the man had the thing?
Polar bear meat contains an exceedingly high level of vitamin A and can be toxic if too much is eaten.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A
Just a guess but maybe a visitor noticed the trophy and blabbed.
Recently hiking, I came across a recently dead Osprey. As a kid, we would have used the feathers in Scouts. Today, I just walked away, letting them rot. No way would I touch a raptors feathers today. Jail time for picking up feathers from a dead bird.... Insanity they name is regulation...as they say in Hot Fuzz... For the greater good.
And the pot nears the boil-over point ........
“Rodger Dale DeVries, 73, entered a guilty plea this week to one count of illegally importing polar-bear parts.”
Why? Michigan is thick with hunters, and they know about jury nullification.
Easy not guilty verdict by the hunter jury. The man needs to put some faith in his fellow hunters that they’ll do the right thing.
In that case I’d recommend eating only the safe part ~ don’t be dragging the parts around where it’s not safe to do so.
In that case I’d recommend eating only the safe part ~ don’t be dragging the parts around where it’s not safe to do so.
“Increasingly statutes of limitation are being altered to read “x number of years AFTER police become aware of a crime”.”
Every time I hear about a change to a law like that, it’s always for the worse.
Almost everything is being run by people who should never be in charge of anything.
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