NRP Blotter

The Maryland Natural Resources Police recently charged two men with wildlife violations in Cecil and Somerset counties.

Acting on a tip, officers went to the Elkton home of David Michael Reeves, 29, on Feb. 7 and saw him butchering a deer carcass hanging from a swing set.

Reeves told officers he shot the doe on his property the previous day with shotgun loaded with buckshot.

Officers found deer remains and a blood trail next to a corn pile. A GPS check of the site indicated the deer was shot 20 yards off Reeves’s property. In addition, Reeves had never taken a Maryland Hunter Safety Course.

Reeves was charged with: hunting out of season, harvesting a deer with buckshot and hunting without taking the state-mandated safety course.

He is scheduled to appear in Cecil District Court on March 18. If found guilty of all three charges, Reeves could be fined as much as $4,500.

In Somerset County, NRP has charged a sixth waterman with illegally harvesting oysters from protected state waters in connection with an incident on Feb. 12 in the Somerset Oyster Sanctuary in Tangier Sound.

Ryan Christopher Brittingham, 25, of Crisfield, was charged with illegally harvesting wild oysters in an oyster sanctuary after officers conducting surveillance watched four vessels enter the protected area and remove 36 ½ bushels of oysters. The oysters were seized and returned to the sanctuary.

Brittingham is scheduled to appear with the other watermen in Somerset District Court on April 7. If found guilty, he could be fined as much as $3,000 and have his commercial license suspended for up to one year.