I happened to hear the last 1/2 hour of MR. Kline on the Jan Michelson show on Friday. I had heard of this incident before and as I understand it this has been an ongoing conflict since 2003. This man claims it is his RIGHT to shoot any and all deer he finds any where on his land in order to protect his trees. There had been incidents that the DNR had looked into prior to the last one that lead to the citations. In the final incident he killed more than 1 doe and then intentionally called the DNR to report it just to get the issue to a trial venue.
I did manage to get into the show in the second hour to express a small portion of my thoughts. I fell that he should be held accountable on several levels. First and formost, he knew that his actions were ILLEGAL. He was told on several ocassions by the DNR that it was illegal and that he could apply for depravation tags, but he said he felt it wasn't necesary just to protect his property. I couldn't get in until well after Mr. Kline was off the air, so I asked Mr Michelson if Mr. Kline allowed hunting on his land, because I have heard that he does not, and he said he had never thought to ask that. DUH!! Jan also went on to say that that probably would not help with a "migrateting" animal like deer and that there wasn't a deer season open now any way. I explained to him that deer don't migrate and that if hunting were allowed it would help remove at least as many of the offending deer as Mr. Kline chose to shoot legally. I was suprised that Mr Michelson did agree that this might be a viable alternative.
Another issue, for me at least, is the wanton waste of shooting these deer and then just leaving them. The wanton waste laws say that all consumable parts can't be left in the field. Several callers said that they knew of people who shoot deer and turkeys that they feel are damaging their crops and then just push them into a ditch to rot and that was fine with them because they wern't much better than vermin. There was a lot of joking and laughs about just trying to pop them at night with a rifle and flash light which I found offensive.
Jan's major position was that a man should absolutly have the right to protect his property in this manner. Another caller and myself both tried to explain that this is not that simple of an issue and that every person could not take it upon themselves to protect their property in this manner. The other caller brought up a friend with a fish farm that had losses from herons and eagles, both protected species, which would both be federal crimes if shot. I tried to explain about orchard owners and their losses from song birds like robins, which are also federally protected, or free range hog farmers losses from eagles. He was clueless about such things and tried to make a couple of jokes, but finaly confessed to being conflicted about the eagles with their status of national symbles. He did finally admit on the air that if it came down to his lively hood or the eagles, the eagles would lose. Another thing that bugged me was Jan's expressions of praise for Mr. Kline's response when he asked him if he would be willing to pay the DNR $12. for tags to remove the deer. Mr. Kline said he would not and that he would not put a price tag on defending his rights. To me this is the statement of an arragnat man who is much more interested in making a hugh issue of this, for his own selfserving reasons, than actually finding a way to protect his trees. I didn't hear him even address any other measures such as fencing, but I may have just missed that. Grain farmers put up fences to keep neighbors livestock out and aren't at liberty to shoot cows or horses that get into their corn fields. Game farms put up fences to keep deer and other game in and are even required to remove the existing wild populations before introducing their own animals. In Mr. Kline's instance fenceing would be a very viable soultion but he doesn't want to spend the money, even though it would be tax deductibel, so that all the rest would actually be paying for it any way.
In case you didn't notice, this radio program really ticked me off. Almost all of the callers were either totally ignorant of, or at least under informed, reguarding deer and wildlife issues and thought the DNR should even allow deer hunting year round. Some talked about the numbers of dead deer along the highways from car accidents but most were in urban areas which don't allow much , if any, hunting. Most of us understand these issues and have commented on here about them in the past, but we are really preaching to the chior. We need to find a way or form to educate some of these people who only view deer as ravagers who, as a caller said, start at one end of a property and eat every thing clear to the other side and are good for nothing else. How can we do this??
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