Members of TNDeer.com presented a Robo-Deer to TWRA recently to help catch road hunters and poachers.
The members of TNdeer.com held a fund raising activity recently to collect donations for purchasing a Robo-deer for TWRA. The deer is to be used for catching poachers and road hunters.
The group collected around $1,300
and bought the robo-deer. David Jolley, Dennis Goldsby and Brian Kinkle presented it to TWRA at the April TWRC meeting.
Below is the statement from the presentation:
Mr. Chairman and members of the Tennessee Wildlife Commission, Director Meyers, Mr. Fox. We at TNdeer.com want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today. As most of you know TNdeer.com is a statewide group of Tennessee deer hunters. We have 3,000+ members from all parts of this great state. We average over 58,323 individual readers a month over the last 8 months. Our members range from youngsters just starting their hunting to 70 year olds that are in their last years. Members that have harvested 100+ deer and members that have never harvested any deer.
At this time I would like to introduce a few of our TnDeer staff members present.
I’m David Jolley and I live in Harrison Tenn. Dennis G, CEO of Tndeer from Memphis BSK of Nashville.
BuckWild from the Memphis area
As you can see the staff of TNdeer.com is spread all across the state and is very diverse in their occupations. The one thing that brings us together is deer hunting. I have had the privilege to hunt with all of these guys and there are not any better sportsmen. We, at TNdeer.com, have been known to argue about harvest limits, QDM, doe hunting, quota hunts, the TWRA and just about any other topic that pertains to deer hunting. But there is one thing we all come to agreement on – poaching is blight on our sport. Not only is poaching detrimental to our wildlife but it gives us, the ethical hunters a bad name. We the sportsmen and women can do only a few things to curb this problem. One of course is to turn in violators and the other encourage young hunters to follow the current rules.
In January of this year several of the east Tennessee members wanted to get together. We had lunch and had Wildlife Officer C.J. Jaynes of Bradley County come in and talk about poaching and what was being done to curb it. He brought with him a few film clips of TWRA officers in action catching road hunters with Old Timex. He made the statement that the decoys they had were in bad shape and that a couple didn’t look very convincing. Lynn Deaton brought it to the attention of the staff and we all agreed that this was a worthwhile project. The TnDeer membership raised the money through donations and ordered the deer you see.
We are not stopping with one. We hope before the year is out to have raised enough money to purchase at least 3 more of these deer to present to the TWRA. Very shortly we hope to be putting out collection jars at various sporting goods stores around Tennessee with our flyer so that the hunting public can donate to this worthy cause. We have named this program “Pennies against Poachers”. We would ask the Director, Mr. Meyers, to pass this information down to the rank and file so that the area Game Wardens are aware of the program.
Our other avenue in the fight against poaching is a little more proactive. We are discussing the possibility of placing the names of those convicted of poaching on our web site for all to see. We understand there are some legal requirements to doing this but if poachers believe that when they get caught their name will be posted on the Internet it might make some of them think twice.
As you can read we are starting a different kind of fund drive and should have all the particulars in place by the end of the week. We will be asking you the members to place collection jugs at Pro-Shops/Sporting Good Stores/Check-in Stations basicly any where hunters will be over the nexr few months. We will have forms for the Propritors and you to sign so they will be assured that these funds are going for the stated purpose. We will also have a designated flyer to be places on the jug or near it. We have informed TWRA and asked the Director to pass the information down to the County Game Officers so they will be aware of our program.
The third avenue we are hoping to take is the posting of convicted poachers names on TnDeer. We have checked the legality of do so and been told there isn't problem. The TWRA staff attorney and the Chief of Enforcement are looking in to just how much information they can provide and when. This may take a few months to work out all of the kinks and legal issues.
After our presentation by Dennis and myself - BSK handed the controller to Director Meyers we recieved a very loud applause from the audience, TWRA officials and the Commission. That applause was for all of you. After the meeting Director Meyers and Assistant Director Ron Fox thank us again as did many of the Commissioners including Chairman Skip Simonton. Gentlemen it was a gift that was very well recieved. You all should be proud of yourselves.
Director Meyers was demomstrating TnDeer I to the Commission when Commissioner Jeanette Rudy told him to make it's ears wiggle. The whole room broke out in laughter.
After the meeting Dennis, Buckwild, BSK and I had a chance to talk with Chief of Enforcement Sonny Richardson. We asked if he knew where they would assign our pet and at this time he didn't know but assured us that we will be kept abrest of TnDeer I's activities.