Poachers, smugglers, and other fish and game felons steal our shared natural resources, and “Cal’s Poaching Desk” is here with all the sordid details. For more stories of wildlife wrongdoing, be sure to tune in to “Cal’s Week in Review.” New episodes drop every Sunday.
Duck Hunt Degenerate
A South Carolina man used a toy pistol from the Nintendo “Duck Hunt” video game to rob a business, according to the York County Sheriff's Office.
Twenty-five-year-old David Joseph Dalesandro rolled into a Kwik Stop convenience store earlier this month wearing a mask, wig, and hoodie. He showed the clerk the spray-painted gun in the waistband of his pants, and either the clerk didn’t notice it was a fake gun or he’s just not paid enough to do anything about it. Either way, Dalesandro got away with about $300.
But he wasn’t about to drop that money on drugs or a nice steak dinner. No, this guy is more practical than that. Deputies located Dalesandro a short time later in the parking lot of a Dollar General down the street.
He’s been charged with armed robbery with a deadly weapon, petit larceny, and a charge of, quote, “wearing masks and the like.”
The Duck Hunt pistol isn’t actually deadly, of course, but South Carolina law considers anything a deadly weapon if you pretend that it is. Delasandro is lucky there wasn’t another Kwik Stop customer armed with a real deadly weapon who decided to restore law and order in Sharon, South Carolina.
Hopefully, the would-be robber uses this as an opportunity to take a hard look at his life and pick up some new hobbies. Like actual duck hunting. He seems to have at least some interest in waterfowl.
GPS Grizz
Game wardens in Montana are asking for the public’s help in identifying the person who shot and killed a grizzly bear in the Cabinet Mountains in the northwestern part of the state.
Wildlife officials discovered the bear because it was wearing a GPS collar. The adult male grizz had been collared for research purposes, and officials say it did not have a history of conflicts with humans.
The bear was part of a small population of about 60 grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk recovery areas. Researchers are tracking these bears closely in the hopes that they will expand and start to breed with the bears in surrounding areas, such as the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem to the east.
It’s a federal crime to kill a grizzly bear in the lower 48, but there are exceptions for self-defense. Hopefully game wardens are able to get to the bottom of this one, but if you have any info, go ahead and give them a call.
The Worst Drinking Game
Moving across the pond to France, a man has admitted to killing a woman with a hunting rifle in what may be the worst drinking game ever devised by an adult beverage.
Apparently, the pair decided to put on a bulletproof vest and shoot at one another with a rifle. The 47-year-old woman went first, and she was found dead of a gunshot wound to the stomach. The 55-year-old man turned himself in to police in a “severe state of drunkenness” the same day.
This story was first reported earlier this month by the French media outlet AFP, but it doesn’t appear that there have been any further developments. It’s unclear what charges the man might face, what caliber of rifle he was using, or why they didn’t consider beer pong sufficiently exciting.
Get Your Own Caviar, Sissies
Returning to more traditional wildlife crime, five Wisconsin men and one Texas resident were hit with a total of 57 charges for poaching hundreds of shovelnose sturgeon and harvesting their roe.
“Roe'' is the mass of eggs contained in the ovaries of fish. Any female fish can have roe, but only fish from the sturgeon family are considered fancy-pants caviar. Shovelnose sturgeon are less desirable than lake sturgeon, but their roe can still sell for as much as $45 per ounce.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources first received a tip in 2019 that men had been illegally killing sturgeon in Pool 9 of the Mississippi River. The investigation that lasted the next two years included hundreds of hours of surveillance and documentation. Game wardens found that the men would catch female sturgeon, harvest the roe, and throw the carcasses back into the river, which obviously makes them horrible people.
Vladimiras Parsikovas, Soma Miller, and Artyom Miller received the harshest punishments of the group. They will all have to pay over $2,000 in fines and restitution and have their hunting and fishing privileges suspended for the next ten years.
Shovelnose sturgeon are a slow-growing species that may spawn just three or four times in their lifetime, so it’s important for game wardens to crack down whenever they hear about sturgeon poaching.
Hopefully, the penalties are enough to dissuade these jokers from doing this again. If they want caviar, they should get it like the rest of us. Get a spoonbill tag or go to a state where it’s legal to harvest spoonbill, also known as paddlefish, and make it yourselves, ya sissies.
Pig Problem
Speaking of regret, poachers in Hawaii have finished off a passel of pigs at a local country club in Oahu, and the club’s managers want answers. We covered this story back in Episode 203, and I’m sorry to say there’s been an unfortunate update.
The pigs lived on the golf course and surrounding countryside, where the managers said they fed on invasive plants. But poachers have been going after the pigs for years, and they killed five piglets in February.
In this latest incident, local media reports that poachers killed the four piglets that survived the first shooting. The country club put up signs warning trespassers, and they’re asking for harsher punishments for poachers in the area.
Pigs are a major issue to landscape, agriculture, ground-nesting birds, and vehicle collisions. On top of that, they’re typically delicious in Hawaii, and the culture supports killing and eating pigs. So good luck over there, Oahu country club.
You Can’t Handle the Truth
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Kamper, a commanding Army general at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has been permanently relieved from duty for what some believe are wildlife-related crimes.
Kamper was suspended from duty back in February. The Army was cagey about the exact reason, but it was rumored that the major general had violated the base’s hunting rules. According to another officer stationed at the base, Kamper killed elk and deer out of season, shot at animals from his vehicle, and killed animals at night and in residential neighborhoods.
The Army still isn’t admitting to Kamper’s violations, but they did just permanently relieve him from duty. A spokesperson said that Kamper had been removed due to a “loss of trust and confidence in his ability to command.” Kamper is awaiting reassignment and remains in the Fort Sill area.
Meanwhile, there have been significant changes to some of the base’s hunting and shooting policies. One of the shooting ranges has been closed since February, the use of centerfire rifles to target pigs and coyotes has been banned, and the head of the wildlife department has left, along with most of his staff.
It’s unclear exactly which of these changes was the result of the general’s activities, but an officer at the base tells me he suspects the fall hunting season will look very different now that Kamper has left.
