Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

Can the DNR legally re-introduce a species into an area without telling anyone? Or do they have to notify people?

Why?? If its on State or Federal land, why do they have to tell anyone? If I had a farm I wouldn't have to tell anyone I was getting an ostrich. If they are re-introducing a natural part of the environment, like an owl, why would they have to tell?

What about plants?

Sounds like Pennsylvania. The Game Commission swears they didn't introduce / re-introduce coyotes into PA but they are here now and have really taken off over the last 5-6 years. So if they didn't do it where did they come from? I have a hard time believing they migrated in here on their own and they certainly aren't just feral dogs running wild they are the real thing. They even list them in the game regulations.

The coyotes have really been spreading here in SW MI. Think the neighborhood cat death toll is around an even dozen so far.

The Game Commission, to the best of my knowledge, has never released coyotes into PA. Coyotes have been around longer than 5-7 years, alot of them coming from New York. The "Game Commission stocking coyotes" rumor stemmed from an incident (if I remember correctly) where a WCO, for some reason, tagged a coyote with a numbered tag. Later an individual either shot or found the coyote with the tag in the ear, lets say it was number 49, and that made it look like there were 48 other coyotes with tags thus the Game Commission is OBVIOUSLY stocking them here. As far as listing them in the game regulations.....why wouldnt they be in there? They are a furbearer with an open season?

...The Game Commission swears they didn't introduce / re-introduce coyotes into PA but they are here now ....

It was on the news here that there is an influx of mt lions in northern MI and the DNR is swearing they didn't re-introduce them. I was surprised to learn there is also a tribal DNR. I was wondering if the tribal DNR could do it without telling anyone.

Generally, no.

Which laws are used to say that you have notify, list in the register to allow people a chance to say and so forth can vary depending on which monies are used for this project. Let's say federal monies are used, though.

Then one gets into the interesting situation of Environmental Impact Statements to determine how one's project will affect the environment, if it will affect the environment.

But would it matter if one was reintroducing wildlife that was there before? Biologically speaking, one will usually find if one type of wildlife was removed, something else will fill it's niche, place in the environment. So even if it was there before, to bring it back might affect something that is there now.

Of course, things aren't that easy because generally, thanks to good old Man, the environment isn't the same as it was before. Say, very hypothetically, one wanted to reintroduce a kind of Osprey in a region that when the Osprey was there before, there were just streams, but no dam. Now, there is a reservoir but the mosquitos are kept at bay by the increased fish population that up to now, didn't have to worry about the Ospreys. Now the Ospreys are reintroduced, they get all fat and happy on the fish, nothing is opposing the Ospreys, the fish population crashes, the Osprey population explodes and crashes, and the mosquitos have a ball!

So generally, no.
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(Bond and his new girlfriend enter Austria on a musical sled. Going thru the checkpoint, "I have nothing to declare!"--007
"Just a cello!"--Kara, (wtte), "The Living Daylights")

Thanks Snow!
So maybe some mt lions got loose from private places. Hunting preserve? Private owners?
But probably more than one would have to escape to be noticed..right?

>So maybe some got loose from private homes

Without knowing the details of the region (and I'm not willing to look them up at this time since I have to prepare my own household for the arrival of two kittens), anything is possible ALTHOUGH given the complexity of the organism, it's probably not an accidental transportation introduction as was the Zebra mussell, certain underwater plants.

Maybe they escaped from private reserves; that's how we got the Africanized Honey Bee. Maybe they were officially, illegally reintroduced. Maybe they were reintroduced by some civilian who had more goodness in their heart than brains in their head. Maybe they were introduced by a sportsman. And so forth on the maybes.

Perhaps some construction project removed some natural barrier that now allows them to move in the area. The bad thing is that there are so many possibilities when one doesn't have much data. The good thing is that since we have been thru this so many times before (which in a way is a bad thing), one isn't necessarily shooting in the dark when they start searching for how this happened.
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("Ummmmm, how do you happen to be here? Are you a neighbor or something?"--"Amos" (a woman) Kline, questioning Simon Templar of how he just happened to be outside her window when the shots were fired, (w,stte), The Saint: The Fiction Makers)