Below is a Facebook post by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police:
Respect private property, but if you feel someone isn’t, don’t take matters into your own hands – a license plate gets us what we need most of the time.
Officer Flowers and Officer Prater responded to a phone call Saturday evening that his neighbor had an active poacher on his property. The first thing that Officer Flowers observed when he arrived in the area was a bit out of the ordinary. He witnessed a man on a tractor ram into the back of a parked pickup truck. The man on the tractor pushed the truck down an embankment into the tree line.
Officer Flowers removed the man from the tractor, removed a loaded .44 magnum revolver from his waist band and detained the man. The tractor man was the property owner and did not want the poacher to get away so he took it upon himself to disable the poachers’ vehicle which he totaled.
The poacher turned out to be a 16-year-old neighbor and his grandfather. The 16-year-old had killed a closed season cow elk. The cow elk was recovered and the meat donated to the Orting Food Bank.
Don’t be tractor man – call us (360) 902-2936 or 9-1-1.
(Photo source: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police)