March 19, 2015
From DNAInfo.com
STATEN ISLAND — A deer hunter suspected of beheading a buck on Staten Island has become the first person ever arrested for poaching in the city, officials said.
David Oakes is set to appear in Staten Island Criminal Court Friday on charges of illegal deer taking, hunting with bait, hunting without a license and failure to tag.
Investigators had been tracking him since he was suspected of hunting and beheading a deer in 2013, they said.
In November, he was found stalking the woods near Schmul Park Playground.
“Yeah, I took the eight-point buck last year from the same spot and from a bait pile,” Oakes told investigators in November, according to a summons against him.
“Anything that might endanger our fellow New Yorkers, such as someone hunting with a bow and arrow in the proximity of a school… we’re obviously going to enforce on that very, very rigorously,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at an unrelated press conference Thursday.