OUTRAGED!!!

[West Jersey Detecting]

I know this does not belong in the "Today's Finds" forum, but it needs to be seen by as many people as possible before it is too late.


I had an appointment earlier today to meet with a regional magazine that is doing a story about metal detecting. Although I have a very busy work schedule I agreed to give them 30 minutes of my time. I thought a good place to meet in case they wanted some photos would be a county park.


I was appalled and embarrassed by what I saw as the interviewer and I walked along the highly traveled walking path. There were hundreds of unfilled holes along the path, some only a few inches deep, others deeper than 8 inches! In 10 years of detecting I have never seen such a mess.


It is no wonder that more and more municipalities are banning metal detecting. This person shows total disregard not only for his fellow metal detecting enthusiasts, but for the property of others.


There was a park police about 100 feet away from where I was standing, but bringing it to their attention would only have a detrimental affect.


If this person reads this forum, I would recommend they turn themselves in for the vandalism caused to the park. Unfortunately I was in dress shoes and slacks, otherwise I would have filled in the holes myself.


I don’t blame this on the “reality” TV shows, but I think internet sales has a lot to do with it. Online orderding bypasses the speech we all got when buying metal detectors about filling our holes, asking for permission, the Code of Ethics, etc.


All it takes is one complaint about holes in the parks and it will be time to hang up all of our detectors in the shed for good!

 

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[ticm]

What park was it. Why so outraged. It's tv shows , detector forums and such that help promote it. There are guys that do this for money it's not their hobby. Some folks just plain suck Neil. Been that way from the first of man.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

You sure they weren't caused by coons, they dig holes for grubs. happens here a lot. I had park rangers tell me the ones I found were when I told them they were not my holes when ranger walked up and started talking to me.

 

[lookindown]

You sure they weren't caused by coons, they dig holes for grubs. happens here a lot. I had park rangers tell me the ones I found were when I told them they were not my holes when ranger walked up and started talking to me.

Everytime I hunt in a park I fill in squirrel holes so I dont get blamed.

 

[Hunthicks]

I'd have to say, that only the dumbest of the dumb would do something like that. Some animals make a very convincing plug look alike. A few years ago I thought someone had done the same thing, only to witness a raccoon digging them. Squirrels also dig holes, however they are usually only 2 - 3 inches round. Saw hundreds of them today while scouting some wooded spots. Bigger grey squirrels likely would dig bigger holes than our little red squirrels here.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

The coons holes I found were the same size holes you would dig when detecting, there were dozens and dozens of them all over, I thought "what the heck?" The ranger walked up and told me they were coon holes and not to worry, they were not blaming them on detectors or me....

 

[Iron Patch]

The big question is whether the magazine will run with this unexpected scoop and totally flip something that you thought would be positive.

 

[Lady Pirate]

Down here in Florida we suffer from armadillos digging all sizes of holes. You would think there were metal detector people not filling in their holes. And add squirrels and racoons digging. And the feral pigs just tear your property up completely.

 

[DeadElvis]

Down here in Florida we suffer from armadillos digging all sizes of holes. You would think there were metal detector people not filling in their holes. And add squirrels and racoons digging. And the feral pigs just tear your property up completely.

Armadillos are the worst, and disgusting creatures to boot. An interesting thing I read is that they rarely survive getting run over because they instinctively jump when startled and wind up struck by a vehicle as opposed to being rolled over. I've always heard them called "possum on a half-shell".

That might be a good angle when asking permission to hunt though - "I make no holes bigger than a squirrel, only I refill them".

 

[BeachComber7]

Same with me, i fill in holes from squirrels and raccoons, so i don't get blamed!

 

[Ray S ECenFL]

Sounds like critters to me.

 

[spartacus53]

I've said the same thing times on similar post, it could be animals and in many cases it is.

That being said....


I think it's high time we take the fight to those little critters anyway, and teach them a lesson for perhaps trying to ruin this hobby. I say to arms and end the nonsense. I know Monty has the squirrel population single-handedly in check. Now we need a small army to tackle those nasty masked bandits

 

[Bum Luck]

And the feral pigs just tear your property up completely.

Is that like Rick Feral?

 

[Keppy]

I have a plot of land i keep mowed in back of my house.. I live in the country and a lot of woods around............ And i have Coons & Skunks that dig holes there like that there......

 

[West Jersey Detecting]

I was told by a member of our club that a couple of young "punks" were spotted with metal detectors there. Critters dig holes, they don't cut around a circumference and flip over a plug.

 

[ticm]

I was told by a member of our club that a couple of young "punks" were spotted with metal detectors there. Critters dig holes, they don't cut around a circumference and flip over a plug.

Yep. Rotten punks. Well at least they aren't in front of the tube playing video games or worse.

 

[savant365]

I learned the hard way that racoons will also come along at night and re-dig holes that I dug and filled in. After detecting my parents property I got a call from my Father the next morning telling me to get over there and fill in all those holes I left in the back yard. I most certainly filled them in the day before but when I got over there sure enough the back yard looked like a war zone.

It took me awhile to figure out what had happen but after setting a live trap and catching and relocating racoons for the next week the problem was solved. I'm not saying thats what happened there but I know it does happen. As far as punks getting parks declared off limits to detecting...it happen here. Some bozo was using a folding army shovel to dig basketball sized holes and killing the grass. Some people just don't get it.

 

[Steveo]

No matter how the holes got there,it still looks bad and you know the normal joe will blame that on a MDer.

 

[John Silvered]

Squirrels. They are not on the side of good.

 

[Woodland Detectors]

Hard to take that one. It is simply common sense to respect others property. No special skills are needed to understand that we need to leave things in better shape than we found them. It is a no brainer that when a hole is dug, you should at least fill it back in. Even the new reality shows discuss disgruntled land owners expressing their frustrations about leaving the land in better shape than when the excavators did before the loaders leave...It is just simple ethics we were taught as children.