lowry

Member
Feb 25, 2005
17
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I have been bored at work and have been reading all of the Conservation Officer reports for the year posted on the dnr site.
People are so stupid, it's no wonder the DNR has little patience for people breaking the laws. I read one report of a guy who had a bald eagle in captivity and had painted it's head brown so as not to raise suspicion.


Here's just a small sampling. Note that most of the orv offenses do not include dirtbikes, there were very few of those and they usually specify if it's an orv or dirtbike.

With assistance from COs Doug Hermanson and Ryan Aho, CO Dave Painter located an ORV operator at his residence who had failed to stop for CO Painter earlier in the day. Tickets were issued for failing to stop for an officer, careless operation of ORV, operate an ORV while license suspended, and litter. The litter ticket stemmed from a case of beer that the operator left behind in his attempt to evade the officer.

CO Joe Molnar wrote a ticket to an ORV operator who had the misfortune of riding past the Pigeon River Forest Headquarters during a Law Enforcement District meeting. The operator had no trail permit, no helmet, and was operating in a closed area.

CO Brian Olsen stopped and warned 19 ORV operators for operating down the middle of a county road in Ogemaw County. Several hours later, he contacted 13 of the same 19 subjects who were operating in a closed area. Tickets were issued.

CO Ryan Rademacher came upon a southbound motorcycle in the northbound lane of M-37 in Newaygo County. Upon stopping the bike, the driver was found to be without a helmet, had no driver's license, no vehicle registration, and no insurance. The man told CO Rademacher he was on his way to town for a bottle of whiskey and had been in too big a hurry to consider all of the aforementioned items. The subject was ticketed.

CO Patrick McManus contacted several subjects who were operating ORVs in the Allegan State Game Area. Two of the subjects came around the corner at a high rate of speed and almost hit the CO's patrol vehicle. Both were riding with no helmets and with passengers. All were ticketed for operating an ORV in the state game area.


Not ORV related but interesting.

CO Trey Luce checked two adults and two children fishing along the banks of Hickey Creek in Alger County. The adults did not have licenses but received warnings as CO Luce did not want to leave the kids with a negative impression of law enforcement. As he was leaving, one of the kids said to his dad, "You dropped something." CO Luce looked and saw that dad had tossed a marijuana pipe on the ground. This time action was taken.

COs Duane Budreau and Carl Vanderwall responded to an injured eagle complaint in northern Emmet County. When the officers arrived, they observed an adult bald eagle standing on a boulder in a stream. While waiting for assistance from Wildlife Division personnel, the eagle flew from the streambed and landed on the tailgate of the officer's patrol truck. The eagle was captured and sent to a rehabilitation facility
 

2TrakR

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Mi. Trail Riders
Jan 1, 2002
794
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Note the "operating in a closed area" tickets. They were all issued for operating on either a county or forest road. Most would think a "closed area" would be an area that has been closed to ORV like a swamp, hill climb or similar. In this case, these "closed areas" are just normally open roads.
When the DNR fights against a county opening their roads, for example, they cite the number of tickets for this. It's usually wordsmithed to imply that operating in an environmentally sensitive area and a "closed" area are one and the same...
To quote the DNR/USFS "Ogemaw county should not open it's county roads to ORV use because it will lead to ORV entering into environmentally sensitive and other closed areas." "There have been x more tickets issued in Ogemaw county for operating in a closed area since the county ordinance was in place."
To many this obviously means that ORVs are tearing up the precious wetlands and fragile hillsides now that the ORVs can use county roads. What they don't know is those tickets were for riding on a gravel road.
 
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