This happened recently, about 20 to 30 miles from where I live, in Minnesota.
Here's the article: DNR officials investigating alleged illegal hunting tactics on Walter Palmer's Clay County land.
A senior conservation officer with the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said Thursday that an allegation has been leveled that illegal "herding" of deer by pickup trucks is occurring on land owned near Barnesville by Palmer, the Bloomington dentist who stirred an international uproar when he killed the beloved lion Cecil this summer in Zimbabwe.
The hunter who filed the complaint said that, on two occasions, a pickup truck chased deer back onto land owned by Walter Palmer. In MInnesota, it's a misdemeanor to herd wild animals (including deer) using a motor vehicle. The fine is relatively small: $287 plus court costs.
A spokesperson for Palmer says he wasn't in the area and says the person who made the complaint has "a history of personal animosity toward Dr. Palmer." And Palmer wasn't on the land at the time. As of now, it's just a complaint that's being investigated.
Here's a related opinion piece by Mike McFeely (a local radio talk show host): McFeely: Walter Palmer doesn't own the deer, nor does anybody else. He says we must remember that Palmer owns the land, not the deer.
He makes this point:
Deer and other free-ranging wildlife are not owned by any individual. This is one of the tenets of North America's public trust doctrine of wildlife. Wildlife is "owned" by the people and managed by federal, state and provincial governments.
This model, which dates back to the United States winning its freedom from England and its king, wiped out the centuries-old European model in which wildlife was privately owned and hunting it was exclusive to the upper classes. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the idea of public-trust wildlife on numerous occasions.
It's all a fancy way of saying that while Palmer owns 900 prime acres of deer-hunting habitat in Clay County, he cannot keep deer from leaving his property to roam on somebody else's land.
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And here's the thing that bothers me. In the stories about Cecil the Lion, the lion was chased off a protected wildlife reserve, a safe place where Cecil couldn't be killed, across an invisible line (a border) to a place where he could be killed. Incidentally, if you're not familiar with that story, here's a Wikipedia description of what happened: Killing of Cecil the lion.
To me, this sounds very similar -- in this case, herding deer with a truck so they don't cross a property border.
In either case, if you’re rich enough, you can hire people to break (or at least circumvent) the law. I hope he gets fined $287.