Josh First's Blog

Why do people trespass on private property?

During one of his many temporary incarcerations, infamous bank robber John Dillinger was asked by a news reporter why he robbed banks, and he famously quipped “Because that’s where the money is.” Funny enough, true enough, but Dillinger eventually ended up being shot to death by both civilians and a ragtag assortment of law enforcement agents who were fed up with his lawlessness.

I have been similarly wondering: Do people, particularly hunters, trespass on private property because that is where the wild game is? Or is there some other reason that turns otherwise normal people into lawless jerks who instigate their victims into acts of violent retaliatory fury?

My observation and experience is hunters, in particular, trespass on posted private land, and end up poaching wildlife there, because they are drawn to the mystery and promise of new territory. They think that a plot of private land that is carefully cultivated wildlife habitat must have some really nice, abundant, maybe even trophy wildlife on it. And sometimes these outlaws do, in fact, stumble into a kind of bank vault of wildlife, where they feel like they have hit the jackpot.

The problem with trespassing on posted private hunting land is that someone else, the landowner or a club that leases from the owner, has probably spent a lot of time and resources maintaining that land. Paying the real estate taxes on it, managing it, making it a sanctuary or haven for wildlife. All year long that landowner runs chainsaws, plants and prunes fruit trees, sprays herbicides, clears trails, plants various crops like clover that most wildlife find attractive.

These considerable efforts are done for the benefit of the landowner, his family, his friends, or for the club members who pay him for the opportunity to exclusively hunt there, in a very brief window of time. Hunting seasons are usually just a few weeks long. This investment of time and money is like any other investment, say, a savings account at your local bank. Or your retirement pension.

Trespassing and poaching are not victimless crimes. A landowner’s entire year’s work can go out the window from it.

Trespassers enter into the private property and, purposefully or by mistake, disturb the wildlife, maybe scare it away and off the property; poachers kill the wildlife. These disruptions come at a great cost to the landowner, who for 50 prior weeks has been working hard, husbanding the land’s natural resources, and suddenly finds himself at a disadvantage when he should be reaping his just reward.

Someone else has come along and taken advantage of all his hard work and investment, someone else has claimed his reward that he was looking forward to. Most often, the trespass intrusion and poaching so greatly disturb the property’s carefully arranged balance, that the landowner gets little to nothing of what he had worked so hard to attain. And hunting seasons are so brief that there is no time to wait out the disturbance.

This is exactly how both trespassing and poaching are forms of theft. Thievery. Scumbag-ness. Dirtball-ness. A-hole-ness. And when someone has stolen something from the landowner, the landowner can get angry about it. Sometimes really, really angry. Especially if the thief acts like the whole thing is no big deal. Because it is a really big deal to screw a landowner over and steal away from him his hard work and promise of success.

Confession time: I have been a scary person when encountering trespassers and poachers (scary to them and often to me). Not long ago a warden asked me to consider becoming a deputy warden, and I responded that I could not do that, because I get so angry at trespassers and game thieves that it would be unbecoming to see someone in an official uniform lose their cool. Yes, I have had people charged in court, but often my hand tightly around someone’s shirt collar while they get roughly dragged off the property is enough to convince trespassers that other venues hold more promise and less danger. I don’t know if many other landowners operate this way, but I am super old school. A facility with firearms and knowledge of the law also helps build confidence when dealing with armed trespassers and poachers.

As one state trooper said to a trespasser I had roughly collared, “Yes, Josh is armed. But YOU are armed, too. Is he supposed to let you shoot him so you can make your getaway? Here is your citation, do not come back here.”

Some people trespass because they are looking for things to steal, including rare plants or animals, or to drive off wild game they don’t want the landowner to get. Others trespass so they can poach wildlife through illegal hunting. Others may simply get a jolt of excitment, or are simply curious.

Folks, trespassing and poaching are a really big deal. Some landowners make a significant income from leasing their hunting land, and poachers undermine that investment. Some landowners treasure their privacy, and seeing an armed thief skulking around their property makes them feel directly threatened. So don’t do it. Don’t think it is no big deal to slip past the No Trespassing purple paint or sign and “just take my gun for a walk” or take a Sunday drive up that posted driveway.

That walk that comes so casually to you, the trespasser, comes at someone else’s expense, even if you do not see it right then. And it could end up costing you everything. No wild game animal is worth getting in trouble over, and certainly not losing your life or mobility for.

The answer to the temptation to trespass on private land is to listen to that little voice in the back of your mind warning you not to take the chance. Go to public lands for your hunting and fishing adventures. Here in Pennsylvania, public lands are super abundant. If you don’t like sharing public lands with the general public, why then, go buy yourself a piece of land and make it your very own wildlife sanctuary.

Had the once popular John Dillinger stopped robbing banks when he made that cute quip of his, he could have easily slipped away into anonymity and comfortable living, or even into celebrity and wealthy living as a free man. But he pushed it too far, and paid the ultimate price. Like too many thieves pay every day….Guys, don’t trespass and don’t poach.

And yes, baiting is a form of poaching and wild game theft. Don’t do it.

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UPDATE December 2, 2024: Today I was sitting on a remote hillside in Northcentral Pennsylvania, with a rifle across my knees, overlooking private land surrounded by about two million acres of public land, enjoying the snow-covered serenity. Suddenly, loud voices approaching from behind grabbed my attention. Through a normally silent piece of state forest emerged four young men, in hunter orange and preparing to drive off the piece of private land.

Looking at the leader, who was giving specific directions about how to spread out and push the deer off the private land, I turned to face all of them and asked “Did we grant you permission to hunt here?”

“I mean, we have a bunch of people down in there right now, deer hunting, and they don’t expect to have anyone walking through.”

The curse-word filled abuse heaped on me caught me off guard. Me, easily the age of the fathers of these four young men, very much their elder and merely a private landowner asking an elementary question that any landowner would ask of uninvited guests, was now the bad guy.

“Eff you” Eff this” “Eff him” “Eff that” were the nicer things said to me as the young men checked that the boundary was clearly marked and backed up and regrouped.

I do not know or understand who raises such poorly behaved and aggressive young men, but for those who are inclined to ascribe poor behavior only to people with dark skin, I am here to tell you these were four white guys. Out in the middle of the big nowhere, armed with rifles, and acting like a criminal gang. With all their anger, I wondered if one of them was going to shoot me in the back.

They had already loudly walked a half mile from their remote parking spot (that itself is a long and arduous drive to reach) through laurel-choked oak woods that normally is full of deer, as the abundant deer tracks in the deep snow attested to. What if these four “hunters” had done a silent deer drive from their vehicle out to the private land they intended to sneak on? They might have already bagged a deer. Instead, they talked so loudly, so boisterously, for so long, that I thought they much have been forest workers. Never in my life have I heard hunters this loud in the woods.

Their behavior makes no sense, unless their goal was simply to spoil the posted private land that they already know is off-limits and that they were jealous of and wanted to ruin for hunting by anyone else….