Washington Man Totals Poacher’s Truck With His Tractor

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife police are asking the public not to be the "tractor man."

This plea comes after a landowner decided to take the law into his own hands and "incapacitate" a poacher's truck so the poacher could not flee the landowner's property... after he'd called wildlife police.

WDFW says when two officers responded to a phone call Saturday to a report of an active poacher, the first thing they observed was a man on a tractor. The man was using the tractor to ram into the back of a parked pickup truck.

Before officers could stop him, the man on the tractor pushed the truck down an embankment into the tree line.

WDFW says officers removed the man from the tractor, and detained the man at gunpoint to begin investigating the puzzling scene.

WDFW police said they learned the "tractor man" was the property owner and did not want the poacher to get away, so he'd taken it upon himself to disable the poacher's vehicle which he totaled.

While the poacher was committing a crime, the situation could have escalated very quickly had the poacher returned to the tractor scene.

In this case, the WDFW police showed up in time to calm things down and the poacher turned out to be a 16-year-old neighbor and his grandfather.

WDFW reports the 16-year-old had killed a closed-season cow elk, which was recovered and the meat donated to the Orting Food Bank.

"Respect private property, but if you feel someone isn’t, don’t take matters into your own hands – a license plate gets us what we need most of the time," a warning from WDFW police said.

Don't be a tractor man -- call WDFW police at (360) 902-2936 or call 911.