Trespasser 1

We have done many stories about how farmers have to endure encroachment, another term for trespassing on their own private property by hunters. Hunters who do not ask permission to hunt on the farmers land. Most hunters are honorable and do ask for permission but there is a case in Idaho that will be familiar to many of you farmers out there and underscores the necessity for hunters to be standup citizens and communicate with the owner of private lands that they wish to hunt on. Gem County farmer Danny Walton was at ground zero of the debate over new trespass laws during the 2018 Idaho legislative session. As a private property owner, he tells a story of a three-peat trespass offender at his farm that put him in the forefront of the effort to overhaul the Idaho trespass laws. "I was irrigating right here on top of this field right behind me. He drove by and waved and I waved back to him. He went around the corner, I got on my four wheeler to go get the wife and do some more streams. I heard this bang and I ran on down with the four wheeler. He was on my road coming out of my field with a pheasant in his hands. I waited till he got to the road by his car. I asked him what he was doing and he said I shot this pheasant and it landed out here so I came out and got it. I asked if he had permission to be out there. He said yes I had permission and I asked who from? He said the guy that owns it. I said, you're looking at him and I don't recall ever giving you permission."