Deer Head Battle Ends Up In DumpBY JANINE ANDERSON
janine.anderson@journaltimes.com
Saturday, July 11, 2009 6:34 PM CDT
CALEDONIA — The Department of Natural Resources can try to take the deer head John Longo had mounted without a permit.
It won’t succeed.
Unless DNR agents want to dig through the dump, Longo said, they won’t find the head.
“At the end I said, if you (the DNR) want the deer head, I’ll throw it away or burn it,” Longo said. “If I can’t have it, you can’t have it.”
The battle over the head of the car-killed deer began in June 2008. The DNR learned that Longo had picked up a deer from the side of the road in February of that year. He ate the meat, then mounted the head.
He never got the free permit required to take the deer home, and the DNR issued him a ticket. Instead of returning the head, Longo fought it in court.
The judge ordered him to return the head, but he didn’t. The judge also ordered the DNR to give Longo a permit for the head if it didn’t pick it up by Halloween.
“The warden tried to get it back,” Longo said. “He called Oct. 24. I guess he did try, and I didn’t comply. He could have arrested me for it.”
The DNR believed the judge went too far.
“No one in the DNR felt they were in a position to comply with that court order,” said Michael Lutz, chief counsel for the DNR. “None of us could in good faith or good conscience allow him to possess something that’s illegal to possess.”
The DNR appealed, and the Court of Appeals sided with the agency.
Between the judge’s order in 2008 and the Court of Appeals July 1, 2009, ruling, Longo tossed the head. He also never responded to the appeal, giving up his legal right to be heard on the matter.
Longo admits he didn’t follow the rules, but he thinks the rule is bogus.
“It’s a stupid law,” Longo said. “If they went and picked ’em up it would be one thing, but they leave ’em rot.”
That’s what gets Longo.
“I hate to see it go to waste,” he said. “I was brought up right after the war. If we had potatoes and eggs and a piece of bread we were lucky ... I’m not a wasteful person.
“By being that way, the DNR will crucify me for it? Up their gump stump.”
The head wasn’t anything special, Longo said, but, for southeast Wisconsin, it was good enough. The buck was probably three years old, he said, with an eight-point rack.
“I’m sure he’d gone through my land,” Longo said. “I’m sure I fed that deer in my hay field. ... It was just too nice to throw away and go to waste on the road.”
So after he butchered the deer, Longo had someone mount it.
That’s ultimately what got him in trouble. The guy who mounted the deer told Longo he needed a permit. Longo told him to mount it anyway.
“The DNR, pardon my language, can kiss my go-to-and-stay-put,” he said.
Lutz said he has never had a case quite like this one.
“We still think we’re entitled to that deer head back,” he said. “What happens next will depend on what the DA’s office does.”
The Court of Appeals can’t order a defendant to do something, so the case returns to the county level. To force the issue, the District Attorney’s Office must bring it back before a judge. The office has not yet decided what action to take on the case.
Even with the legal troubles from last year’s roadside harvest, Longo’s not about to stop watching the shoulders. On a recent trip to Minnesota, he said, he counted 10 dead deer from Madison to the state line.
He didn’t take any, but he’s not making any promises for the future.
Will you ever take another car-killed deer?
“Sure,” Longo said.
Will you call the police?
“Maybe,” he said. “Ah. I better do it. It’ll make ’em happy.”
http://www.journaltimes.com/articles/2009/07/11/local_news/doc4a592183860fe387473197.txt
