[HN Gopher] How to Catch a Wily Poacher in a Sting: A Thermal Ro...
___________________________________________________________________
How to Catch a Wily Poacher in a Sting: A Thermal Robotic Deer
Author : Element_
Score : 18 points
Date : 2025-07-24 02:45 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ED3Ya
| comrade1234 wrote:
| Hate to say it but poaching deer is a long tradition in
| Wisconsin. I had a relative on the u of mn Duluth football team
| and they'd get protein from poached deer. But yes, in the last
| decades the dnr has been nore and more effective.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _the dnr has been nore and more effective_
|
| What is "dnr"? I tried googling, but I just get "do not
| resuscitate".
| rescripting wrote:
| Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources:
| https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/
| qualeed wrote:
| Ah, makes sense, thanks!
| comrade1234 wrote:
| In this case Wisconsin.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| Department of natural resources. They monitor hunters,
| fishing, etc. They've been using deer mannequins for decades
| to catch poachers and they're getting more sophisticated now
| with internal heat sources in order to handle poachers with
| night vision.
| qualeed wrote:
| Thanks! I figured it was something along those lines, but
| couldn't find the actual words to go with the acronym.
| yostrovs wrote:
| It's also important to note that in the US, agencies like DNR
| (some states have different names for them) have
| extraordinary police powers that allow them to enter property
| if they suspect a violation. In similar situations, police
| officers would be required to get a warrant from a judge, but
| the DNR can just go in.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| If you live in the right area, hunters will give you as much
| venison as you can freeze. No poaching required.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I have property in NW Wisconsin and this is true. Also bear,
| which are hunted with dogs in this area. It's hard to
| understand - it seems a lot of middle-class and higher income
| people that hunt don't particularly like
| venison/bear/goose/etc and so they give it away. They just
| like to kill. (But I like to eat all of those and I have
| hunted but no longer do because everyone gives me their meat)
|
| But the lower-income people I talk to do hunt for food and
| get enough meat to last the year.
| lawlessone wrote:
| tried both, (not bear of course) thought they tasted nice.
| Not sure why people wouldn't eat it if its there.
| fryz wrote:
| FWIW, not saying it's right (as a hunter I wouldn't ever do
| this myself), but most of the biologists that build the
| population models, inc. the ones that they use to set the
| amount of hunting licenses or tags sold, build a certain amount
| of poaching into their models.
|
| It's a particularly hard problem to solve - the hobby is
| usually spread through traditional means (you do it if your
| parents did it), and going all the way back in certain
| communities this was the main way to get meat, even before it
| became regulated. It's difficult to stop something that not
| only puts food on the table for your family, but has been done
| that way for generations.
|
| This was one of the main contributors to the decline of the
| turkey population in the lower 48. In the early 1900's, a lot
| of folks thought turkey's were extinct because of over hunting
| and poaching, and the National Wild Turkey Foundation took
| efforts to restore the population for hunting.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| > In the early 1900's, a lot of folks thought turkey's were
| extinct because of over hunting and poaching, and the
| National Wild Turkey Foundation took efforts to restore the
| population for hunting.
|
| Well they've definitely recovered in NW Wisconsin. Theyre
| everywhere and the males won't even move out of the way of
| cars.
| beaker52 wrote:
| I read this as Willy Poacher and it gave me a chuckle.
| fn-mote wrote:
| The idea that deer need to be protected is hilarious. All around
| the Midwest (USA) you can see obvious signs of deer
| overpopulation. Every doe gives birth to twins. The understory in
| the forest is bare.
|
| This guy is selling 60 deer decoys a year? The DNR is just
| playing a power game.
|
| If the focus of the article were about poaching an animal that
| isn't as common as mice, I would be more sympathetic.
|
| Instead it seems like the focus is on the easiest poaching to
| catch (because of the massive numbers of infractions), not the
| greatest impact.
| yostrovs wrote:
| Echoing my own comment below, it's important, given the
| pointlesness of fighting poaching while deer are everywhere, to
| note that in the US, agencies like DNR (some states have
| different names for them) have extraordinary police powers that
| allow them to enter property if they suspect a violation. In
| similar situations, police officers would be required to get a
| warrant from a judge, but the DNR can just go in. So, often
| they use the pretense of poaching to go see what someone is up
| to on their own land. They even have the right to install
| hidden cameras on private property without telling the
| landowner to try to detect violations.
| whartung wrote:
| I don't know, I'm not there, not my world.
|
| But I would think the goal is to reduce the number of poachers.
| Poaching being a mind set, a criminal behavior, regardless of
| that actual animal they're harvesting. If someone is willing to
| poach deer, perhaps it's a gateway to poaching something more
| vulnerable. Learning how to avoid the game wardens, building an
| "underground" community.
|
| Similarly, if the deer are that plentiful (and they no doubt
| are, there are all sorts of stories about deer populations
| expanding), then it would seem good policy to encourage
| hunting. Lower the fees, increase the bag limit, do some
| outreach with safety training, etc. "No out of state fees to
| come hunt in Minnesota!" The goal to get poachers out of the
| fold and into legal hunting.
|
| And, of course, there's "dual use" concepts, as deer can be
| considered pests in some scenarios (which fall under different
| guidelines than game animals). That can always blur the lines.
| So, maybe not everyone running around at night with thermal
| imagers is, actually, a poacher. Perhaps they're doing pest
| control. But that's someone who shouldn't mind encounters with
| game enforcement.
| bklyn11201 wrote:
| This is very sensible. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any
| states incentivizing demand. I suppose you could argue that
| license fees have not gone up at the CPI rate, so this is a
| discount of sorts. There are small attempts at encouraging
| kids to signup, but it's surprising how little dynamic
| control (doe tags, lotteries, etc) there is especially as
| most states have made the license process fully electronic.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >But I would think the goal is to reduce the number of
| poachers. Poaching being a mind set, a criminal behavior,
| regardless of that actual animal they're harvesting. If
| someone is willing to poach deer, perhaps it's a gateway to
| poaching something more vulnerable. Learning how to avoid the
| game wardens, building an "underground" community.
|
| This is the exact same argument that caused a lot of
| teenagers to get locked up over a plant in the 90s.
|
| I am less than un-moved by it.
|
| If people want to blast a doe out of season off their porch
| with no tags I have no problem with it so long as they are
| doing so in places where the population can support that
| behavior.
| trhway wrote:
| Now lets do a robotic rhinos and elephants. Upon detection of a
| shot and a specific place it came from (using radar and sound
| sensor) the robot turns and starts to run in in that direction
| unleashing a salvo from a range of weapons - from non-lethal
| 96GHz direct energy and infra-red sound to water cannon to rubber
| bullets to RPG shots with sound and light grenades ... That is
| for the first time offenders. If face recognition detects second-
| time offender - lethal weapons applied, automatic rifle, RPG with
| real grenades, fire throwers. Also the robot can launch drones
| and there is a gamut of opportunities here...
|
| >Barring a direct shot to the circuitry, the decoys can last five
| to 10 years.
|
| simple [body] armor plates should do here.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-25 23:00 UTC)