Wildlife Manager Rich Staffon has been with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for over twenty years.
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He says
arguments over deer stands aren't unusual, but he's never seen
anything like Sunday's shooting, which left five people dead
and three others severely injured in the Wisconsin woods.
"It's kind of off the charts. It's hard as a hunter to even
comprehend it," Staffon said. .....In Wisconsin, private land is off-limits to hunters unless they
have permission from the landowner. Public land is a different
story.
"On public land, a deer stand is really public property, so on
public land it's first come, first serve. So whoever gets in
that deer stand, even though someone else may have built it,
whoever occupies it first has the right to be there," Staffon
said.
But not everyone understands the rules.
"They've had a number of problems with Hmongs just culturally,
understanding the fact that there are regulations and limits,"
Staffon said.
The suspect, 36-year-old Chai Vang, is a Hmong from St. Paul.
The weapon he used, an SKS semi-automatic rifle, is legal, but
not a popular choice for hunters. But Staffon says all hunting
rifles are designed to be deadly.
"One thing deer hunters know, any deer hunter who's shot deer
realizes how much damage hunting rifles can cause and so you
realize that if you shoot somebody it's very likely that you're
gonna kill 'em," he said.
Still, Staffon said most hunters wouldn't hesitate to confront
someone sitting in their deer stand.
"Just because the guy was a hunter and had a rifle in most
cases you wouldn't, unless you knew something about that
individual, that they were a hothead or something, you normally
wouldn't worry about going up to them and talking to them. You
just wouldn't expect that, it's the last thing on your mind,
that somebody was going to open up and start shooting at you,"
he said.
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