A police officer in the city of Tonawanda noticed something unusual in the early morning hours of Nov. 15: three individuals in a pickup truck at Veterans Memorial Park with two freshly killed dead deer in the bed of the truck.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation police arrived and determined that both deer—a 10-point buck and a doe—were shot earlier that night with a .22-caliber rifle from the truck, off a roadway in Tonawanda, which is closed to all deer hunting.
The three poachers received 24 tickets total, including charges of hunting deer with rimfire ammunition, hunting deer with an artificial light, taking deer with the aid of a motor vehicle, discharging a firearm from a public highway, and possessing a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle, among other hunting-related charges. The operator of the vehicle was also arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated.
The following reports are excerpted from DEC:
A Cooper’s Hawk with a broken wing was rescued from a residence in North Babylon on Nov. 22. An ECO transported the hawk to a local rehabilitator in Massapequa, who confirmed the fractured wing, and also an issue with the bird’s left eye. Cooper’s Hawks eat small- to medium-sized birds and small mammals. Their population is stable in NY…