From the Traverse City Record-Eagle:
The State Department of Natural Resources is used to taking its lumps. It gets its share and more in the media, in deer hunting and fishing publications, from bloggers and even on this page in the form of editorials and letters to the editor.
It comes with the territory. The DNR, after all, is a taxpayer-supported agency and deals with some pretty volatile issues and individuals.
The agency oversees fishing, hunting, trapping and outdoor activities of all sorts, all of which have passionate adherents not shy about their opinions.
Too often, however, the agency and individual DNR officers don’t get the credit they deserve. Many spend untold hours in the heat and cold watching for poachers or monitoring fishermen. They’ve been shot at, punched and worse in the line of duty. They don’t often hear someone say “thanks.”
But without their efforts there’d be a lot fewer deer and fish for those who pay for the privilege of hunting and fishing.
Recently the DNR, with help from officers from the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, said they would charge six men with running an illegal commercial fishing operation on Lake Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc. The poachers may have claimed more than 20,000 pounds of walleye in just the last two months and thousands more over several previous winters.
The DNR and the tribe seized 256 pounds of fish and removed 1,200 feel of illegal gill nets from the bay.
The DNR also arrested a pair of Harbor Springs teens who were accused of poaching as many as two dozen deer. The boys, aged 16 and 17, were said to have used a powerful spotlight to “shine” the deer at night.
Officers pursued the case after getting complaints in October of multiple deer being shot in an area just north of Harbor Springs.
Last fall, the DNR charged two Michigan State Police troopers with illegally shooting a 10-point buck from a state police vehicle, without a license, two days before the state’s firearms deer season began; the troopers then lied about what they did.
Given our recent history of law enforcement types getting breaks others would not get, there was likely some anticipation that the case would be covered up or at least kept quiet. That didn’t happen, and the two troopers did time in the Cheboygan County Jail. They’ve been transferred to the Upper Peninsula while their MSP punishment is decided.
Some of us may not always agree with DNR policies or tactics. But we must also acknowledge when they get it right and protect Michigan’s flora and fauna from those who would do harm.
Turtle Talk 