Duck poachers caught

You’ve either been on the water or in the gun range 24-7 for the last week or so if you didn’t hear about the trio of Canadian yahoos who went on a duckling shooting rampage (from a car no less), and uploaded the video evidence to YouTube. I blogged about it on August 4 (see “Hunting poachers“) after the clip became the talk on a slew of internet hunting forums, and the story subsequently became big news for media outlets throughout Canada and the U.S.

As I predicted, the poachers were quickly apprehended, as three Saskatchewan men were arrested this past Saturday, August 8. Check out canoe.ca for this story (“YouTube duck poacher offers apology”), that gives some insight into the motivation behind the callous act. A tidbit:

“Not that it’s any excuse, but we honestly didn’t know it was crime–if we did we wouldn’t have uploaded it to the internet and we never would have done it in the first place.”

Also of interest, conservation officials say poaching tip lines in both Alberta and Saskatchewan received an unprecedented number of calls relating to the incident. The poachers were to make their first court appearance in a Saskatoon court this morning, August 10.