Sale of section 42 venison. Should it be allowed ?

wexfordman2

Hi,

Wondering what peoples opinion on the above was. Should dealers be allowed sell wild venison out of season, and can or should we do anything to prevent it ?

Cass

I'm not sure on this.

I'm of the mind that if a section 42 is gotten, genuinely (for legitimate damage control) and not simply for the shooter to get more deer, then a section 42 is needed. As such, and depending on the amount named on the section, what can a shooter do if during the season he got enough for himself? Was talking to a lad recently and he has 2 section 42s with something like 35 deer on them. I doubt he would need all them so he only option is to sell. Now whether he does this or not i don't know, but i won't judge him any different if he did. I'd sooner see them go to use, and if it covers him in terms of expense then so be it.

I've always taken the stance that game dealers are not the sole problem, and i really don't want this thread to turn into a duplicate of your other thread so i'll try and stay on topic, but why lads are slated for selling deer that they "must" shoot is beyond me. It's also very different to a lad shooting hundreds just to sell. It's at this point i have an issue with selling to dealers, but it's as much about the lad shooting (more so actually) than the dealer taking them.

TriggerPL

+1 , dealers are not the problem. Npws are they know there is an unreal amount of poaching going on and haven't done anything about it . Example a tagging system if every hunter had 50 tags a year and game dealers we're not aloud take them with out tag , then the money wouldn be there anymore

Cass

I'll be honest and say i think the NPWS are doing what they can given their limited resources. Imagine what they could do with 10% of the budget of AGS.

Here is a thought, and trying to keep on topic while touching on the other factors that are tied into this, run a tag system trial on Section 42s. They should be easy to work, track, trace, etc. as the amount of people involved are known and named and then find out where the deer go, how dealers deal with them and use it to set up a permanent tagging system. Then slowly run it out to all shooters over time.

TriggerPL

Cass wrote: »

I'll be honest and say i think the NPWS are doing what they can given their limited resources. Imagine what they could do with 10% of the budget of AGS.

Here is a thought, and trying to keep on topic while touching on the other factors that are tied into this, run a tag system trial on Section 42s. They should be easy to work, track, trace, etc. as the amount of people involved are known and named and then find out where the deer go, how dealers deal with them and use it to set up a permanent tagging system. Then slowly run it out to all shooters over time.

I agree it would be a perfect chance to get a system up and going !

wexfordman2

I like the idea of tags for section 42's cass, especially as a test run for tags overall for everyone.

I suppose what got me thinking, is I remember I got a section 42 2 seasons back, and the NPWS ranger was very anxious to see if I was planning on selling the meat (which I was not). The ranger said that they dont like handing out sec 42's for profit. TBH, I was happy to hear that, sounds like perfect sense to me.

With regards the guy shooting 35 deer on his sec 42, I wonder is the problem or the solution just a more rigerous cull during the season as opposed to a sec 42. The ambiquity makes it easy for those with a profit motive to work around the system, and even with tags on section 42's that ambiguity still remains.

I think the temptation of making money out of season tbh is just to great for some, and leaves too much wiggle room for people to curcumvent the system.

The whole thing just came back to me during the week when I spotted a dealer selling wild venison on line, which can only come from section 42 deer, legally.

Cass

Apologies for the long post.

Tags will not stop poaching no more than it will stop section 42's being issued or used for profit. The only way this could be changed is for the NPWS to issue a section 42 (or deer license for that matter) with the strict condition of no selling.

As we all know section 42s are issued to the land owner and not the shooter. A ranger decides if the section 42 is warranted and then it's granted. However trying to combat the issuing of section 42s with increased culling is simply not possible. If you allow overshooting of the land it will not guarantee a reduction in numbers and hence the removal of any need for section 42's. Of course keeping the number of licenses issued the same cannot guarantee more deer are shot. IOW you cannot "make" people shoot more deer. They are either shot or they are not. The only possible means would be to open the season up to allow for shooting of all deer for the entire season, but that takes a ministerial act, and is above the powers of the NPWS.

There is nothing in law about selling deer when they are shot (unless someone else can find anything). The NPWS must abide by the regulation set forth in law. So the ranger's comfort in whether the deer are shot and sold is to some extent irrelevant. So if someone shots deer and decides to sell them it's their prerogative.

So unless such changes are made lads can do pretty much as these please. This does not "excuse" any exploitation of section 42's, but again if a lad has no need for the deer, and must shoot the deer then what else would people suggest? Even giving them away might not work. Plus as we all know if one lad holds the moral high ground and refuses to shoot them or sell them, there is always another out there that will happily do it.

As i said here and elsewhere i personally have no issue with any lad that wants to sell a few deer. Some will say i'm not truly a stalker/hunter, others will agree with me. Frankly i don't care what others think. It's my opinion and right or wrong i don't need anyone's blessing. I have "defended" the game dealers to the extent that i do not blame them only. Some may do things that would be classed as wrong, illegal, etc. I don't know and definitely won't defame them or leave myself open by making accusations on an open forum. However if all game dealers were shut in the morning i guarantee that while it may slow the selling of deer for a little while it will only slow it, and not stop it. The issue is always in the first step, and in this case it's the shooter.

I'll wager that more lads selling to game dealers are legal shooters than poachers. It's why i said before that i'd love to get a look at the returns (without the private information such as names, etc) on lads and the amount they shot. IOW how many individual lads shot over 300, 250, 200, etc, etc.

The last point and i don't know how relevant it is to the topic, but as there is no deer census i'm wondering, other than people's opinions, just how many deer there are in total, per provence, county, etc. Until this is done then any numbers recorded are meaningless as they are all based of "best guess".

luvhuntin

I have 2 sections at the moment and will probably sound hypocritical but I dont believe you should be allowed sell Deer on a section. Im also not really in favour of the sections myself and certainly not for hinds which I do refuse to shoot but as was said above it was a case of if you dont someone else will have to and they are excellent permissions. I also used to heap the blame on the dealers but im increasingly of the opinion that it is not where most poachers are getting rid of their meat.