It’s Like Deja Vu for Faux Buck, Hunter

Robo-Deer has nabbed his fair share of poachers--and now has bagged the same trophy twice. Officials in Albany, N.Y., say Levi Sweet, 48, was charged with misdemeanors after discharging a firearm across a public highway Dec. 12. They said he fired from the window of his Ford Bronco at the same decoy, a mechanical three-point buck, in another county last year. Sweet was the latest catch by the coldhearted robot with the glass eyes and foam body that state authorities have used for 15 years to nab poachers. New York law bars hunters from shooting from a public road onto private land without the landowner’s permission. Violators face as much as $1,000 in fines and three months in jail. The state uses about 50 Robo-Deers at roadsides, farm fields and woodlands where there are complaints of hunting out of season or trespassing. Officers hide nearby, waiting for poachers to shoot. Sweet could lose his hunting license, besides being fined, because this was his second offense, Conservation Officer Jim Volker said.