F&S.

On June 7, a property owner in Virginia filed suit against the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (VDWR) and three conservation officers that work for the state agency. In his lawsuit, filed in Henrico County Circuit Court, Josh Highlander claims that multiple game wardens wearing camouflage entered his private 30-acre parcel without his consent or knowledge—alarming his wife and young son and confiscating a game camera in the process.

Highlander is being represented in his case by the Institute for Justice (IJ), a non-profit Arlington-based law firm with a history of backing landowners in private property disputes against state wildlife agencies. According to IJ, the incident occurred on April 8, 2023, the opening day of Virginia’s spring turkey season.

The lawsuit says that Highlander legally harvested a turkey on his property on the morning of April 8 before logging his kill on the VDWR mobile app. It then alleges that, several hours later, three VDWR officers parked their trucks in a cul de sac, a few hundred yards from the property line, and walked through an adjacent private parcel into Highlander’s woods.

According to Highlander, his wife spotted a camouflaged figure moving through a forested part of the family property that afternoon while playing basketball with their 6-year-old son. When she alerted Highlander to the person’s presence, he said he went outside to check the woods, finding only an empty post where one of his game cameras had been mounted in the middle of a food plot.

Highlander’s brother, Rob Highlander Jr., was cited for hunting turkeys over bait several miles east of Josh Highlander’s property on the same day that the alleged incident took place by one of the officers he is suing. According to the lawsuit, responding agents seized two of Rob Highlander’s trail cameras after issuing those citations.

Rob Jr. is contesting that ticket, saying that he was hunting turkeys on a legal food plot with no bait. He says the bait that the agents accused him of using was actually fresh millet seed that he’d legally spread while replenishing the food plot earlier in the year. Virginia wildlife code defines “bait” as “any food, grain, or other consumable substance that could serve as a lure or attractant.”

When contacted by Field & Stream, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources declined to comment on any specifics related to the “pending litigation.” But VDWR Public Information Officer Paige Pearson confirmed in an email that it is lawful for a Virginia game warden to carry out an active investigation on private property without a warrant—or the consent or knowledge of the landowner—so long as those activities are executed “within constitutional bounds.” It is also lawful, she confirmed, for a warden to deploy game cameras on private property, or to seize game cameras off of private property during an investigation—again, as long as it’s done “within constitutional bounds.”

I don’t even know what that means.  It sounds to me like she is saying that it’s okay to violate the constitution as long as it’s done constitutionally.  So here’s a challenge question for her.  Can she explain what it means to violate the constitution as long as it is within “constitutional bounds?”  Do your homework and provide examples.