Deer-hunting dogs make life miserable for rural property owners, SC agency told

Virtually every Saturday during the fall, Rick Baturin watches dogs rush onto his land from nearby hunting grounds in Colleton County.

The canines leave areas where sportsmen are using them to stalk deer and enter his property, an annoyance with potentially dangerous implications that has left Baturin frustrated after years of complaining to South Carolina’s wildlife department.

“My property rights get trampled every Saturday and holidays,’’ he said. “I have two little kids. My kids can’t be out there because at any given time, there are a dozen unknown dogs coming through my property. I can’t take that risk and have my family out there.’’

Baturin is among a group of rural landowners urging the state wildlife agency board to support tighter regulation of sportsmen and the dogs that hunters use to pursue deer. The main complaint is that dogs are getting off established hunting property and running loose on other people’s land, sometimes with gun-carrying sportsmen right behind. Critics spoke to the agency’s board Thursday, June 4 in Columbia.

South Carolina has some laws that could address the problem, but critics say those rules are either too weak or are not being enforced.

Baturin is a member of the Property Protection Alliance, a group formed last year to address the issue of hunting dogs that trespass on private land. The group says it doesn’t want to ban all uses of dogs to hunt deer – but its website says it is “committed to ending irresponsible practices.’’

Not only do deer hunting dogs disrupt the peace, but they interfere with hunters who are not using dogs to stalk game, the group says. The group says dog deer hunters sometimes release “excessive numbers’’ of the animals on small tracts, which opens the door for the canines to get off the property and onto other folks’ land.

The issue has caused tension for more than 40 years in South Carolina, a state where traditional uses of land are increasingly at odds with growth.

But attempts to resolve conflicts haven’t worked, the wildlife board was told. While lawmakers approved a bill at one point that was supposed to address the issue, it hasn’t fixed the problem, said Baturin and alliance president Jodi Howard.

Both said they’re often the victims of unscrupulous hunters who don’t respect the property rights of others during the fall hunting season, which ends in January. Baturin said unruly hunters have shot at him and dumped trash on his land when he has complained.

“On any given Saturday, we have dogs on our property all throughout the course of the day,’’ Howard, who lives in Sandy Run and owns land in the Lowcountry, told the board. “We have trucks running up and down the road. We have dog hunters shooting on our property. We have land on both sides that turns dogs out on our property.’’

The Department of Natural Resources intends to hold a series of meetings on the issue and send a report to the Legislature for consideration in 2027.

It’s possible such legislation could include tough fines for hunters who let dogs stray onto other people’s property, or it may contain restrictions limiting deer dogs to larger tracts of land. But what exactly that will say is far from being determined.

Many hunters who use dogs to track deer say they’re only doing what South Carolina sportsmen have done for generations. They are hesitant to support more oversight as a result of problems they say are caused by unethical hunters.

Using deer to hunt dogs occurs only in the state’s coastal plain. The practice is not allowed in the Upstate for reasons that are not clear.

“Those who violate the law should be held accountable,’’ said Paul Caskey, president of the S.C. Sporting Dog Association. “However, it is important that the actions of a few bad actors not define an entire hunting tradition or shape policy in ways that overlook the overwhelming majority of responsible hunters who follow the law.’’

DNR staff member Jay Cantrell said the conflicts date to at least 1985, and have surfaced every few years since then. The wildlife agency board in 1994, trying to resolve the dispute, said it continued to support hunting deer with dogs if done legally and ethically. Deer hunters were encouraged to work with the agency, Cantrell said.

In 2008, the Legislature asked the Department of Natural Resources to hold meetings and propose a solution based on those sessions. By 2010, the Legislature passed a law called the Renegade Hunter Act, which was a first. But Cantrell said “it was not a perfect law’’ and the dispute flared up again. Multiple bills in the Legislature have since one nowhere.

Cantrell said DNR staff members have no official position on how to settle the conflict, but they are willing to work on the issue some more. South Carolina is growing and changing, and land-use conflicts are becoming more common, he said.

“Although these challenges and issues have not changed much over the years, our state has changed significantly,’’ he said. “We’ve had tremendous population growth, increased development, land tract sizes have shrunk. There are just more competing and conflicting land uses out there.”

Critics say the state needs tighter regulations, but the DNR could more aggressively enforce laws that exist now.

“I’ve called DNR for 20 years, and there’s been one ticket written,’’ Baturin said.

Deer-hunting dogs make life miserable for rural property owners, SC agency told

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