JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – In February, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) announced it had revoked hunting privileges from a Greene County father and son for life after repeated violations.

Shelby Gene Church and Gene Allen Church were both banned from hunting in Tennessee and most of the United States as a result of what the TWRA called several big game hunting violations. In the fall of 2019, they were found to have illegally harvested a buck from the road. Shelby Gene Church had his privileges revoked then, and Gene Allen Church was later found to have harvested deer during a five-year hunting ban.

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Outdoors Appalachia

Gene Allen Church pleaded guilty in court to three counts of hunting on revoked privileges and three counts of illegal possession of a deer. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail in addition to fines, court costs and the forfeiture of deer meat.

TWRA spokesperson Matt Cameron spoke with News Channel 11 about the circumstances surrounding the duo and what must be considered when revoking hunting privileges.

“Because [Gene Allen Church] was hunting on revoked privileges, that’s why he was arrested and given jail time,” Cameron said. “If you’re caught doing that, it’s an automatic 10 days in jail. So there are three counts there, so he got 10 days times three, so to speak.”

According to Cameron, “road hunting” is an extremely dangerous and illegal practice.

“You drive around in a vehicle and you look for game animals to shoot from your vehicle and from a public road,” he said. “And it’s one of the worst wildlife hunting violations that we have.”

“It’s cheating, quite frankly. It’s stealing the resource from someone else because, the vast majority of the time, when someone drives down a road and wants to shoot at a deer or a turkey in someone’s field, they don’t have permission to hunt that field.”

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Cameron said road hunting also presents several dangers and represents an irresponsible form of hunting. People firing from a vehicle often can’t see if there’s another hunter in the tree line or out of sight, putting them at risk. In other cases, Cameron said houses have been struck by gunfire while road hunters fired at animals and missed.

Another variation of road hunting is referred to as “spotlighting,” which takes place at night, adding what Cameron described as a “whole other element of danger.”

“You really can’t see what’s beyond the animal that you’re shooting at. It’s probably, in my opinion, the epitome of poaching is night hunting, road hunting white-tailed deer. There’s nothing sportsman-like about it. It’s cheating, it’s stealing and it’s very dangerous.”

Cameron said deer who are victim to spotlighting are stunned momentarily and temporarily blinded, giving poachers an unfair advantage.

While the Churches did not partake in spotlighting, another Northeast Tennessee hunter recently lost his privileges in part due to spotlighting in Hawkins County. William Franklin Stamey Jr. pleaded guilty in February to spotlighting multiple deer, among various other charges, and received a lifetime hunting ban. Stamey had also poached 20 deer from the road in 2020 alone, the TWRA reported.

The TWRA has to examine individual cases for each hunting violation case. They vary by case, Cameron told News Channel 11, and the agency must choose which penalty it will seek against poachers.

However, the consequences are typically not so severe for someone who violates hunting laws for the first time. According to Cameron, continuous violations are what lead to jail time and lengthy hunting bans.

“Because [Gene Allen Church] was a repeat offender, we asked for his hunting privileges to be revoked for life and the judge granted us that. So now he is revoked for life for hunting in Tennessee,” Cameron said.

The TWRA does not typically seek lifetime hunting bans as a form of punishment, especially if a hunter has never violated the law before. Poachers must display a gross negligence for hunting regulations and wildlife in order for that serious of a penalty, especially since a lifetime ban in Tennessee also spells bans in effectively the entire country.

“That also extends to what we call the Interstate Wildlife Violators Compact,” Cameron said. “Forty-eight states currently participate in that. Massachusetts and Hawaii have passed legislation to also join, so pretty soon every state in the United States will be a member of it.”

Under the compact, a hunter who loses their privileges due to violations in one participating state is barred from hunting in the others. For instance, a hunting ban on an individual in Tennessee spills over to Kentucky and all other participating states. State wildlife agencies use a database to keep track of violators barred from hunting in the current 48 states.

“This started back in the ’80s when I believe it was Colorado and Nevada and Oregon recognized that when someone would get charged for poaching, lose their hunting privileges for example, they would just jump over to another state and continue to violate. Well, they decided that wasn’t good, and they created this compact back then, and it has evolved to include all 50 U.S. states now.”

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Tennesseans who lose their hunting privileges are still typically allowed to purchase hunting licenses, despite not legally being able to hunt.

“In Tennessee, you have a small game hunting and fishing combination license,” Cameron said. “So you have to buy that license in order to be able to hunt or to fish. There’s not a separate fishing license; so we continue to sell it because these men didn’t have their fishing privileges revoked, for example. They can still continue to enjoy fishing; we hope they do it legally, but that’s why in Tennessee you can continue to buy hunting and fishing licenses.”

In the case of the Churches, Cameron said there did not appear to be any fishing violations, so the TWRA did not seek to revoke those privileges. However, he told News Channel 11 there have been instances with other repeat offenders in which the agency has revoked both hunting and fishing privileges.

“Fish are a valuable wildlife resource just like our wildlife are, our game species,” Cameron said. “We get a lot of fishermen that want to take over the limit and continue to be repeat offenders and violate our laws to the point that it’s really damaging the resource. There are times when we do ask for hunting and fishing privileges both to be revoked for life or perhaps just fishing privileges.”

Under Tennessee law, anyone found to have been hunting or fishing after their privileges are revoked must spend a mandatory 10 days in jail for each count. Cameron said that could be increased at the discretion of a judge.

“There’s a little more teeth in it now,” Cameron said. “Wildlife laws, a lot of the time, aren’t viewed in the court as serious as some other crimes in society. We recognize that crimes against people, against children and so forth, there are far worse violations someone can commit. But this does add a little more teeth to it now that it’s not just gonna be fines and court costs or whatever.”

While Cameron said it is appropriate that poaching violations can carry such penalties, the TWRA does not hope to have to dole them out.

“We don’t want to see people continue to be repeat poachers,” Cameron said. “We want people to learn their lesson, and if you haven’t been revoked for life or for a number of years, we want you continuing to enjoy the great outdoors. We just want you to do it in a legal manner.”

Cameron pointed to the numerous species that have gone extinct in Tennessee over generations as a result of overhunting and unchecked harvesting. Elk, bison, mountain lions and red wolves have all been prey to overhunting and annihilation in Tennessee (elk were later reintroduced to Tennessee in 2000 thanks to the TWRA and partners).

“If you don’t have strong wildlife laws and enforcement of them, that can be what happens,” Cameron said. “In the modern era in which we live, people don’t depend on wildlife for a source food and clothing like they did historically. But we still want to keep strong, healthy populations so that we can pass them down to future generations so they can enjoy the great hunting and fishing opportunities that we have today.”

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