Sometimes the Hare-Brained System Works:
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0328robot-moose28-ON.html
Wow, he lost his car too? I can understand the fine, the loss of a hunting license, and the loss of his gun, but why the car? I’m no fan of hunting, but that seems to be a bit much.
Pretty much the same thing would happen over here. Anything you use to commit a felony can be confiscated.
So let me get this straight the DNR sets up a moose decoy not to fool the moose (like a duck decoy) but to fool the hunters. Must be a good decoy eight other residents will go on trial for shooting the decoy as well!
It doesn’t sound like the locals agree with the whole endangered species thing.
My systere shott a robot muse once…
How can you be charged with attempting to kill an endagered species when you didn’t shoot at an endangered animal?
It all sounds cool and such, but I would not be surprised if the charge could have been fought successfully in court. In my opinion, the charge should have been ‘destruction of property’ or, if he wasn’t in a hunting zone, illegal firing of a firearm. I mean, if I go up to a baby doll in a stroller and stab a knife through it, would I be charged with attempted murder? I think not…I’d be charged with destruction of property, and depending on the size of the knife, perhaps another knife related charge…sure as heck not attempted murder. This seems to be exactly the same situation, just a moose instead of a baby.
If you planned to kill a specific baby, got a knife, then walked up to the baby’s pram and stabbed the knife into the pram’s occupant only to find you’d stabbed a doll and that the baby wasn’t in there, I’d expect you to be charged with attempted murder. Why wouldn’t you be?
What’s so difficult to understand about this? What was it that he did? He attempted to kill an endangered species.
If I try to stab a baby in a stroller and miss or am mistaken because the baby was in a different stroller, it’s attempted murder.
If I try to pick up a hooker but it’s really an undercover cop, it’s still solicitation.
That isn’t really a new idea. The game wardens where I grew up in Louisiana in the 1980’s had fake deer that they would place about 100 yards in a field off of a secondary road a wait in hiding a little distance away. Deer standing in a field at dusk are close to irresistible to some breeds of rednecks and trucks would come to screeching halt, back up, guns would come out, cross-hairs placed and they would study it to see if it was real. Now the brain can perceive motion even when it is not there especially through a scope in dim light. After a little while, they would be convinced that it was real a fire a shot. “Damn, it didn’t drop, better fire another one. Bang. Damn. Bang. Damn. Bang. Bang. Bang. Oh shit.”
Now Louisiana is not strict on most laws but it is on game laws and I knew lots of people that got into heaps of trouble for illegal hunting and fishing. My best friend was one of them but charges were later dropped. Shooting out of season off a road at dusk is really bad news there just light night spotlighting is. You would almost be better off murdering someone.
If you try to rob a bank and there’s no money, can you still get charged with attempted robbery? I think so…
In Black River Falls, Wisconsin, there is the Great Orange Moose. It’s a two-or-three-times life-sized metal statue of a moose. It’s off the side of the freeway by a lake, in a large parking lot next to a restaurant, gas station, hotel and gift shoppe. The larger-than-lifesized statuary at this resort includes a deer jumping over a log, a smaller (life-sized) moose (also orange), and a huge cartoon mouse holding a piece of cheese.
Why, you may ask, is the moose orange?
Because when it was painted moose colors, people kept shooting it. Nobody keeps shooting the deer because it’s frozen in mid-jump (the rear hooves are actually smacking into the log), and even an inebriated Wisconsin hunter can figure out that a deer caught frozen in mid-jump and twice life-sized probably isn’t real. However, that 3x life-sized moose right next to it is fair game.
Moose are endangered? In Canada? Really? I thought they were like deer, hardy periennials.
[Boris Badenov]Damn, Natasha. I keeps shooting Moose, and he don’t fall down. Vere’s dat pesky Sqvuirrel?[/Boris Badenov]
So if you browse on them they grow new herbaceous parts back each year? 
The obvious defense is to claim that you knew the moose was robotic.
“Your honor, I would never shoot a real moose. They are an endangered species. But, I would shoot a ROBOT MOOSE! These tin bastards have wandered in and stolen the moose’s ecological niche! Why do you think the moose is endangered? Hunting? Land development? Bah! The moose is endangered because these silicon monstrosities have taken his home and his food! It won’t end there! One day, the Robot Moose legions will invade our houses, eat our maple syrup, and rape our women!
It is the duty of every loyal Canadian to take up arms against the plastic-antlered menace!”
He should be banned from hunting for life IMHO. I would suspect that this isn’t the first time he’s stopped his car and shot something, it’s just this is the first time it was a robot.
What if the moose had come back in time to kill Sarah Connor?
You know, DocCathode, I wouldn’t be suprised if someone tries that eventually. Somene representing himself, probably, because I doubt a lawyer would touch it, but still…
They’re already organizing.
See, you can throw the hooker analogy right out, as solicitation is the crime, regardless of who you solicit. Same with the bank robbery. The act of robbing a bank is there regardless of getting the cash. I would argue that you can’t be charged with bank robbery for holding up a treehouse, though. Armed robbery, yes, but not bank robbery. Even if the treehouse had ‘bank’ written on it.
I beg to differ that you could be charged with attempted murder for stabbing a baby doll. Weapons charges? Sure… Destroying property? Sure. Not attempted murder. When the object of your attack is an inanimate object, regardless of whether or not the guy THOUGHT it was real, you can’t be charged with trying to kill something…there was nothing there to kill!
If that’s the case, if I decided to take target practice on a scarecrow, I could be arrested for attempted murder by simply saying that they think I thought the scarecrow was a real person?
Show me how shooting a chunk of metal is “attempting to kill an endangered species.” Prove it. If there’s no endangered species in the vicinity, there can be no attempt on said animals life! How can someone attempt to kill something that isn’t even there!
Now: Conspiracy to kill an endangered species (if such a law exists)…maybe. I’m not saying the guy didn’t break the law…just that he didn’t break the law that they charged him with (or, if the law is worded that way, I would argue that it’s unconstitutional.)
To expand a bit on Bear_Nenno’s answer - it sounds like he was resting the rifle on the roof of the car when he shot. Here in MA, that would be “hunting from a motor vehicle” and would allow confiscation of the car. If he had taken a few steps away from the car, they’d have no justification for confiscating his car.
I’ve heard of cases (not firsthand) of the Environmental Police in MA waiting for a boater to remove his boat from the water onto the trailer before measuring his lobsters - if he has any shorts, the boat, trailer, and vehicle towing it all become fair game for confiscation at that point. If they had found him with shorts while the boat was still in the water, they could only get the boat.