A New York landowner said they were trying to figure out how to stop hunters from coming onto their property without permission, but the situation had already gone well past a simple misunderstanding.
According to the Reddit post, the family already had no-trespassing signs posted and had personally told people not to come onto the property. That still did not stop the problem.
The poster said hunters had been trespassing, shooting on the land, cutting through fences to get in, and even setting up hunting stands on the property. The family had already found some of those stands and removed them, but the bigger concern was what could happen if armed trespassers kept treating the land like their own hunting spot.
The landowner explained the situation in a Reddit post and asked what they could legally do to stop it: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/17zxxlk/ward_off_hunters_trespassing_and_hunting_on_our/
The family was worried someone could get hurt
The main concern was not just the trespassing. It was the fact that people were coming onto private property with firearms and shooting there without permission.
The poster said they were worried that if the hunters kept using the land, someone in the family could eventually get hurt or accidentally shot while walking around the property. That is the kind of thing that makes a rural property dispute feel very different from someone simply cutting across a yard.
The family had already tried the obvious first steps. They posted signs. They told people to stay off the land. They put up fences. But according to the post, those fences were being cut.
That detail changed how many commenters viewed the situation. Ignoring a sign is one thing. Cutting a fence to get onto private property is much harder to write off as confusion.
The landowner knew traps were a bad idea
The poster also brought up one option they already believed was off the table: traps.
They said they did not think they could set out traps because if someone got hurt on the property, the family could potentially be sued. Commenters strongly agreed that traps were not the answer.
That was one of the clearest lines in the discussion. People told the poster not to try anything that could injure someone, even if those people were trespassing.
Instead, commenters pushed the family toward documentation, cameras, police reports, and environmental enforcement. In other words, make the trespassers easier to identify and make the pattern harder for authorities to ignore.
Commenters said trail cameras could change everything
One of the most common suggestions was to put up trail cameras, especially near the places where the trespassers entered or parked.
Commenters said cameras could help document who was coming onto the property, when they were coming in, whether they were carrying guns, and whether they were damaging fences. Some suggested placing cameras where they might capture license plates.
That advice makes sense because a landowner telling authorities “someone is hunting on my property” is one thing. Photos, times, vehicles, and damaged fencing make it a much stronger report.
Several commenters also told the poster to document every interaction and every sign of damage. If fences were being cut, that could become part of a bigger record showing the hunters were not just wandering onto the wrong side of a boundary line.
The game warden became the biggest recommendation
While some commenters suggested calling local police or the sheriff, a lot of people said the better call would be the game warden or New York’s environmental conservation officers.
The reasoning was simple. If people are trespassing with firearms and hunting on private property, that is not just a neighbor dispute. It can become a hunting-law problem, a poaching problem, and a public safety problem.
Several commenters made a point of saying these were not responsible hunters. They called them poachers and said there is a real difference between someone who hunts with permission and someone who cuts fences to access land they have no right to use.
Others said conservation officers may take that kind of complaint very seriously, especially if the landowner can provide camera evidence or details about where the trespassers are entering.
The cut fence made the situation look worse
The fence damage stood out to commenters because it suggested intent.
A person can sometimes claim they did not see a sign or did not realize where a property line was. That argument gets weaker when a fence has been cut.
Commenters told the poster to make sure authorities understood that part clearly. This was not just someone walking through the woods. According to the family, people were damaging a barrier to get onto the property.
That matters because it helps show the landowner had already taken steps to keep people out, and someone allegedly went around those steps on purpose.
Some commenters brought up New York posting rules
A few people also discussed New York’s rules around posted property and no-trespassing signs.
The poster had signs up already, but commenters still suggested making sure the signs were properly placed and maintained. One person said signs may need to meet certain spacing or maintenance requirements, while others argued that private property rights do not disappear just because someone claims not to have seen a sign.
For the landowner, the practical takeaway was still the same: keep the signs obvious, keep the boundaries documented, and do not rely on signs alone if people are already ignoring them.
Removing the stands was another gray area
The family said they had found hunting stands on the property and discarded them.
That detail drew some practical advice too. One commenter suggested a different approach: remove the stands, secure them somewhere out of sight, and leave a note saying where the owner can call to recover them.
The idea was not to be nice. It was to create documentation. If someone calls asking for the stand back, they may be admitting the stand was theirs and that they placed it on the land.
That kind of paper trail could be useful if the same people keep coming back.
The safest path was boring but effective
The thread did not turn into people telling the landowner to confront armed trespassers in the woods. Most of the useful advice went the other direction.
Put up cameras. Document damage. Keep the signs clear. Call the game warden. Call local law enforcement when trespassers are actively on the property. Report the cut fences as property damage. Build a record.
It is not as satisfying as chasing people off, but it is a lot safer.
And when the problem involves strangers with guns cutting fences to hunt on land they do not own, boring is probably the right move.
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