berrypicker
New Member
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon while venturing along in my boat down a river embankment, I noticed some common blackberries growing wild among the native vegetation. Now, noticing there were no signs or fences any place along the bank I proceeded to assume this was public land. I parked my vessel sat down and began enjoying these berries. Along came a Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission officer who wrote me a citation for the destruction and removal of plant life with-in a State Buffer Preserve(Rule 62D-2.013) and petty theft. My question is...Should the State have the burden to properly mark the boundaries of this preserve, therefore no one would be ignorant of its designation?(State Statute 588.10) Could this be construed as entrapment? For there also to have been a theft, shouldn't there be a value of some sort assigned to the berries in question? They eventually would have dropped to the ground and rot. Since this was also state property am I not allowed to enjoy the fruits of the land, being that we the people of this great Nation and State are the owners. Come to find out you can apply and be an issued a license that would allow me to harvest and eat nuts and berries. Is this really an issue of not having proper documentation?
