Hunting in a no hunting area is a big deal.

In today’s story, the head of the HOA sets up cameras to see who the poachers are in their neighborhood.

Now, his neighbor is begging him to help him keep his hunting license.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

AITA for causing neighbor to lose his hunting license?

I (45M) own a house and a decent chunk of land in Montana.

There are 10 other houses that are part of the same association, which holds in common about 1000 acres of “common area” that is “wild” and is part of the range of a herd of elk.

I’ve ended up running the association, as no one else is willing to do it, and I’m a sucker.

The HOA doesn’t want to allow hunting.

The membership is unanimously against allowing hunting in the common area and we have “no hunting” signs posted all around the property.

In the last couple of years, we have had intermittent problems with poachers.

These are not particularly responsible hunters.

For example, we had a hunter hit a buck, which ended up wounded and dying in my driveway.

Another neighbor found one dead in his pond.

He set up camera to find out who the poachers were.

The local game warden will follow up on illegal hunting, but complaining parties need to have some evidence of who is doing the poaching — for example pictures of vehicles with license plates.

To that end, I set up game cameras in several places where poachers might park to access the common area.

We had an incident of poaching and the cameras caught a pair of trucks of hunters parking on an adjacent road.

It turns out that one of these trucks belongs to someone we all know, who lives a few miles down the road from us.

He confronted the neighbor.

He claims that he was not the one poaching, but rather it was his teenage son and friends.

We can’t tell from the photos.

The game warden is trying to pull the licenses of both of them.

The neighbor doesn’t want to get his license taken away.

The father is asking us to talk to the game warden to try to get him to leave his (father’s) license alone.

My neighbors and I are of the view that we should encourage the warden to throw the book at the whole family.

The truck is the father’s and whether he was there or not, he should be held responsible.

They are getting conflicting opinions from neighbors and friends about what to do.

He also has never volunteered to cover any the costs that have been imposed on our association by poaching (though we don’t know if the same people are responsible in all cases).

For example, hiring someone with a front loader to come haul away giant dead bucks.

However, some other friends of mine, who are themselves hunters, say that losing the right to a hunting license is a big deal and that we should cut him some slack.

Am I the AH here?

The dad should take responsibility for his son. He obviously knew what they were doing and should’ve stopped them.

Let’s see what Reddit thinks about this situation…

This reader has a question that points out who is really at fault.

Another reader points out that it’s not their responsibility to decide.

Another reader agrees that it’s up to the warden.

Here’s a hunter’s perspective…

This person puts the situation in perspective.

The dad shouldn’t have have let his teenage son go hunting in a no hunting area.

What happens next is up to the game warden not the neighbors.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.