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Cops Make NYC's First Ever Deer Poaching Arrest On Staten Island
By
Lauren Evans
Published Mar 20, 2015
Modified Mar 20, 2015
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Suffolk County Police
By
Lauren Evans
Published Mar 20, 2015
Modified Mar 20, 2015
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A Staten Island man who hunted deer with impunity has become the first person ever to be arrested for poaching in NYC.
With the deer population dramatically increasing in recent years, Staten Island residents seem to have taken it upon themselves to cull the masses, often leaving gruesome remains behind—around two dozen dead deer have been reported, many with their heads and antlers removed, the Staten Island Advance reports.
Hunting is prohibited anywhere in the city, so when police caught 47-year-old David Oakes wearing camouflage gear while carrying a bow and setting up bait piles last November, he was promptly cuffed, though he ultimately received a summons rather than jail time.
“Nobody has ever seen anything like it in New York City,” Officer Edward J. Piwko, who led the investigation for the Department of Environmental Conservation, told the Post. “This guy was the worst kind of poacher. He didn’t eat them. He would just cut their heads off.”
Locating the culprit behind the murdered deer wasn't easy—17 state officials spent a year using expensive technology, like night vision goggles and thermal imaging devices, attempting to track the killer. When they caught Oakes, he confessed immediately.
He was also arrested in December of 2007 for following delivery trucks to homes in New Jersey and taking packages from their porches.
Bill de Blasio said enforcement of poachers will obviously continue.
"Anything that might endanger our fellow New Yorkers, such as someone hunting with a bow and arrow in the proximity of a school or any habitation, we're obviously going to enforce on that very, very rigorously," he said at a press conference on Thursday. "And that will be the job of the NYPD and we'll work with the state on that."
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