Leg hold trap violation leads to charges including improper storage of a firearm

Where was the original leghold trap?
On his property?
Is that trespassing?
Just wondering how they use that for evidence/warrant if it was.
I had a situation up in NH, I knew about something, needed to be reported to the state, and they wanted pictures and details in the complaint, but the law was clear that I could not obtain them for the complaint thru trespassing. I could request anonymity, but if it went to court my name would come up in discovery, so it would be found I didn't have permission to be on the property, and thrown out. I could do it another way, but I wouldn't be anonymous. They would retaliate. Lots of moving parts here...and, this was not be being a Karen either. Can't say much more, but I'm gonna get them at some point.
 
Say one of the devices was on the outskirts of a larger property.
Now they get a search warrant for your home.

Of course 99% chance he put the device

But maybe it was someone else

But what if you had a home they wanted to search for some reason.
Put something like that outside the home
"discover" it .
Search warrant
 
Bunch of states out west have been trying to pass bills that would restrict wardens from going on private property without a warrant, thought I read OK, or Wisconsin had passed one last year
 
I believe EPO’s in Mass don’t need search warrants
A search warrant was granted and executed with the assistance of Massachusetts State Police and local law enforcement
They got it in this case? I am not doubting you. But I assume that may mean on the property outside. Not the inside where they found the improper storage
 
A search warrant was granted and executed with the assistance of Massachusetts State Police and local law enforcement
They got it in this case? I am not doubting you. But I assume that may mean on the property outside. Not the inside where they found the improper storage
I think what he is getting at is their "knowledge " of the other devices existing before a search warrant was granted.
If a neighbor said "I saw some on Bobs land" is that enough to get a search warrant? Did they (EP or State Police) go onto his land and see one and get search warrant then......
 
I believe EPO’s in Mass don’t need search warrants

Thats my understanding as well. Getting a search warrant is probably a matter of “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s”.

One thing I have noticed is that the EPO’s seem to be confiscating LTC’s on the spot these days and isn’t something I remember seeing in years past.

Bob
 
How the f*** can a leg hold trap be illegal? What are you supposed to do, Havahart and a .22. Maybe throw a blanket over the animal??
 
How the f*** can a leg hold trap be illegal? What are you supposed to do, Havahart and a .22. Maybe throw a blanket over the animal??

LOL.... cause Massachusetts. They were banned on land in 1975 and underwater in1997.

Not a lot of trappers up here anymore. They didn’t want to buy all new traps.

Bob

https://cga.ct.gov/2001/rpt/2001-R-0127.htm
 
Wasn't it a ballot question in the 90's with the Fish & Game coming out against the banning of foot and body griping traps? An the hand wringers inside 128 got it passed.
And soon after the suburbs started having big problems with beaver flooded roads, coyotes up the wazoo and the trapping of furbearers in MA basically ended...?
 
Wasn't it a ballot question in the 90's with the Fish & Game coming out against the banning of foot and body griping traps? An the hand wringers inside 128 got it passed.
And soon after the suburbs started having big problems with beaver flooded roads, coyotes up the wazoo and the trapping of furbearers in MA basically ended...?

I am not a trapper but I always had an interest In trapping.

Bob

We spoke to Dr. Rob Deblinger, assistant director for wildlife for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Massachusetts has banned the use of steel-jawed leghold traps on land since 1975. The use of both steel-jawed and padded leghold traps to trap animals underwater was banned in January 1997 after the passage of “Question One,” or the Wildlife Protection Act, a ballot initiative codified as Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 131 § 80A.

Deblinger said Massachusetts trappers have not had much experience with the padded leghold trap, developed in the mid-1980s, because its use was immediately challenged in court. Although the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court eventually found that the padded leghold trap met the state's legal standard of humaneness -- that it either killed an animal quickly or trapped it alive and unharmed most of the time – the trap was only legal for about two years before the 1997 act banned its use.

The act allows the use of mouse and rat traps, nets, and “box or cage type” traps. Box or cage type traps are traps that “confine the whole animal without grasping any part of the animal, including Hancock or Bailey's type live trap for beavers.”

https://cga.ct.gov/2001/rpt/2001-R-0127.htm
 
I have my pack basket full of traps from my youth stored in the shed.
I used to take them out and show them to my boys and tell them tales of running a trapline when I was their age.
They always wanted to set them in the woods behind our house and see if we could catch a fox or coon....But nope, I chose to settle in this commie state...
 
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Trapping is dead even where it is legal. Prices are cratered. No one wants fur anymore. Only trappers making bank are pest removal.
True, the market is horrible. Coyote is the only exception, I probably made $400 to $500 bucks last year 9 or 10 coyote furs. Which is horrible compared to the 300 to 400 when I was a kid.
 
I believe EPO’s in Mass don’t need search warrants
The article said they got a warrant and the investigation was in conjunction with police.

I believe they epo needs a warrant for your home.....they don't need one to search your vehicle or person while in the act of hunting or fishing.
 
The article said they got a warrant and the investigation was in conjunction with police.

I believe they epo needs a warrant for your home.....they don't need one to search your vehicle or person while in the act of hubting or fishing.
The problem is the definition of hunting is sufficiently broad to cover significant non hunting activities.
 
The problem is the definition of hunting is sufficiently broad to cover significant non hunting activities.
True.

The concept on no warrant to search you or your vehicle is due to "surrender your catch for inspection" which you agree to do when you buy a fishing or hunting license. You have already agreed to search and seizure by having a license.
 
Wasn't it a ballot question in the 90's with the Fish & Game coming out against the banning of foot and body griping traps? An the hand wringers inside 128 got it passed.
And soon after the suburbs started having big problems with beaver flooded roads, coyotes up the wazoo and the trapping of furbearers in MA basically ended...?
Mass Fakers and Wankers DID NOT "come out against" they were silent, In fact the those A**HOLES have never supported trapping. A director of that agency once said, "If you trappers would go away, Our problems would go away". I was once told by Tom Sheehan, the Northeast Wildlife Manager, "That as far as I am concern, you trappers are no better than child molesters". The statute is very clear, An Environmental Police Officer can trespass over any land whether or not cover by water in the performance of their duties. Search without a warrant or Consent? No.
 
Oh, another piece of Mass Fakers and Wankers History: Up and until the early 1970's A steel jawed foot hold trap could be set on dry land (That's how you catch Fox and Coyote) but the legislative liaison was Dick Cronin (later became Director) and he negotiated that trap could only be "set in water where all reasonable care that the animal will die by drowning" He did this as he was not a friend of the trapper. He claims that it was to keep the use of the trap. BULLSHIT!! He did not even attempt to kill the bill that was attacking trapping but used it to suit his beliefs.
Also after the Ballot Question 1 of 1996, Fakers and Wankers abdicated their responsibility and authority of dealing with beaver damage to the cities and towns because the phone in Westboro was ringing off the hook with flooding problems. They were originally supposed to have a biologist visit each site and issue the permits. This would have taken up personnel time and money, but it would have forced to legislature to address and reverse this, which they have the authority to do. (the income tax issue, is an example of this)
 
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Oh, another piece of Mass Fakers and Wankers History: Up and until the early 1970's A steel jawed foot hold trap could be set on dry land (That's how you catch Fox and Coyote) but the legislative liaison was Dick Cronin (later became Director) and he negotiated that trap could only be "set in water where all reasonable care that the animal will die by drowning" He did this as he was not a friend of the trapper. He claims that it was to keep the use of the trap. BULLSHIT!! He did not even attempt to kill the bill that was attacking trapping but used it to suit his beliefs.
Also after the Ballot Question 1 of 1996, Fakers and Wankers abdicated their responsibility and authority of dealing with beaver damage to the cities and towns because the phone in Westboro was ringing off the hook with flooding problems. They were originally supposed to have a biologist visit each site and issue the permits. This would have taken up personnel time and money, but it would have forced to legislature to address and reverse this, which they have the authority to do. (the income issue, is an example of this)
Early 2000s I was visiting my wife's grandfather. Old Italian guy...great old timer. I was out with him I'm his garden and he had just found a woodchuck he got in a steel Jaw leg hold. He clubbed it with an ax and tossed it into the woods. I told him that they were recently made illegal in mass....he had 5 of them set around his garden. He said "I wona saya nutingng ifa you won". When he passed away a few years later we went to clean out the garage and I threw them away.

Me personally.....I have a woodchuck problem in summer time. My f***in neighbors feed the God damn things and they live under my shed and burrow under and around around footings......was making my shed lean to one side....little bastsrds. I use a have a heart cage trap......put the whole trap woodchuck and all in my truck and drive em to the local wma where i take em for the "long walk" and put a 22 between the headlights and dump em. Can't discharge a gun in my neighborhood.
 
Early 2000s I was visiting my wife's grandfather. Old Italian guy...great old timer. I was out with him I'm his garden and he had just found a woodchuck he got in a steel Jaw leg hold. He clubbed it with an ax and tossed it into the woods. I told him that they were recently made illegal in mass....he had 5 of them set around his garden. He said "I wona saya nutingng ifa you won". When he passed away a few years later we went to clean out the garage and I threw them away.

Me personally.....I have a woodchuck problem in summer time. My f***in neighbors feed the God damn things and they live under my shed and burrow under and around around footings......was making my shed lean to one side....little bastsrds. I use a have a heart cage trap......put the whole trap woodchuck and all in my truck and drive em to the local wma where i take em for the "long walk" and put a 22 between the headlights and dump em. Can't discharge a gun in my neighborhood.
That’s a bummer cuz the only easy option is to have the setback already established on your own land. Thankfully I’m almost there and Phil’s season is all year long.
 
That’s a bummer cuz the only easy option is to have the setback already established on your own land. Thankfully I’m almost there and Phil’s season is all year long.
Like I said I just live trap Phil and take him on the long walk to the wma. 22 cent cure at the end of the walk.
 
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