If You Give a Man a Fish
Ok, boys and girls – this week, we’re going to learn a little bit about the Parks and Wildlife Code (PWC), specifically, Chapter 12, Powers and Duties Concerning Wildlife.
This is probably the chapter that gave rise to the myth that game wardens are the most powerful peace officers in the state and can search wherever they danged-well please whenever they dangedwell want. Of course, that’s a bunch of bunk.
Chapter 12 allows, among other things, a game warden or other peace officer commissioned by the department to inspect licenses, tags, wildlife resources, or “the contents of any container or receptacle that is commonly used to store or conceal a wildlife resource.”
So, while most game wardens will be very polite and professional in asking if they can look inside the ice chest you’re sitting on while fishing or hunting, they intend on having a looksie even if you say NO.
If, however, a game warden knocks on the door to your house and demands to look in your freezer, your proper response should be, “Show me the warrant.”
Ice chests and freezers play an important role in a game warden’s duties, and PWC Chapter 12 is the reason why. Section 12.110, Disposition of Confiscated Game, basically says that the department shall donate whatever ill-gotten booty a game warden confiscates to “a charitable institution, hospital, or person or persons.”
The running joke amongst game wardens is that any particularly tasty table fare confiscated, i.e., shrimp, oysters, quail or the like, be donated to MHMR (my house, my refrigerator). After all - though some would argue - technically, a game warden is a person, and as such, would qualify as an allowable, albeit inappropriate, donation recipient.
But that didn’t happen; most confiscated resources go to needy families or charitable institutions. Some commercial resources, like shrimp, are sold to the highest bidder. During my career, I always had a pile of ice chests stacked around the house somewhere, because I never knew how much ill-gotten booty I’d get on a given day. The take could be a fish or two, or a boatload with hundreds of pounds. There were days when the entire catch of a gulf shrimp boat was seized. Most days, nothing was seized because, thankfully, most people obey the law.
Nonetheless, game wardens carry ice chests to be prepared for whatever may come. I named one of mine. I called it the “good neighbor box”. The moniker came about when I lived in what one might consider a high-crime area.
The crimes were nonviolent, petty theft type things. I had a lawnmower stolen, and while in the process of moving, someone broke into my house and took a vacuum cleaner and a couple of bags of fish out of the freezer.
I wasn’t too upset about the vacuum cleaner because I didn’t use it much, but I was pretty peeved about the fish.
I don’t know if it was a neighbor who stole my stuff or not, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. After the lawnmower heist, I made sure that a good bit of whatever I confiscated got distributed to folks living near me.
It must’ve worked, because I didn’t have anything else stolen after the “good neighbor box plan” was implemented. It got me to thinking.
You know that quote from the Taoist philosopher, Lao Tzu, that says, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime”? Yeah, that’s a bunch of bunk, too.
With all apologies to Mr. Tzu, I’d amend that to, “If you give a man a fish, he won’t steal your lawnmower.” That worked for me, anyway.
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