Wild, Wild West is Back in California
With the decline in enforcing the laws in California, much of the states crime rates are out of control and every politician that gets in the front of the media tells everyone otherwise. Im a full-time Real Estate photographer and I know firsthand that more than 80% of the people I talk too are leaving California due to rising homeless population, out of control taxes and the lack of enforcing laws.
In my spare time, I like to hike and backpack throughout California and I have noticed the crime in the cities has also made its way to the mountains and backcountry that many people retreat to get away from the chaos. I have witnessed many of these issues and crimes firsthand and even taken pictures. You can catch up on them in the "Trail Idiot" section
Many of these people that are breaking the laws know nothing will be done, and if they are arrested they would be out the next day to go back to it. But, that's if they even get caught, the USFS Law Enforcement division that manages the Southern California National Forests said that there are not enough law enforcement agents to patrol two national forests in Southern California (over 1500 sq miles), so they focus their efforts on the worst spots and these spots are growing faster then they can be cleaned up.
This is what a Captain of the USFS Law enforcement said. "Much of these forest areas have been written off"
The only agency that was fast to respond to the complaints of poaching was California Fish & Wildlife. The downside of the discussion was they have to catch the poachers in the act to do anything other than issue a citation for other infractions. To add to the issue hunting for Coyote and Jacket Rabbits is allowed year-round and no tags a required. Poachers can be out hunting for Deer or Bears but when confronted they can say they are hunting coyotes or rabbits.
The local community even had a meeting recently with a Los Angeles County Councilmember representative in a tendance. The residents explained that many of the issues have been brought up for years with nothing being done about them. The representative basically said that when a representative leaves office or retires anything that was in the works to correct issues goes away and everything has to start over. That means that any time or money that was spent doing research or environmental studies was wasted and the next attempt will take even longer and cost much more.
We have over 5 governmental agencies ALL acknowledging that there is a problem, but ZERO of them making any effort to correct the issue. The common responses are "that's not our jurisdiction" or "This will take some time, let me see what I can do", but the best response is they just stop responding. The Wild, Wild West is Back in California.
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