https://www.themeateater.com/conservation/habitat/missouri-poacher-burns-down-landowners-cabin-in-retaliation


Brandon Butler drove three and a half hours on Jan. 4 to see what remained of his hunting cabin. He then watched the still-flickering flames for five minutes before leaving the fire to its task, and retraced his drive home.

He had seen enough. He knew a short, memorable chapter in his life was over. Every tangible part of those memories was now ash.

Butler, 41, lives in Columbia, Missouri. He cherished his cabin and 43 acres in the Ozarks of southern Missouri. But no matter where hunters and anglers own old cabins or remote shacks, they feel Butler’s devastation. As one cabin-owning friend said when sharing the news, “This is my worst nightmare.”




No, the flames didn’t devour Butler’s home or worse, a loved one. But don’t underestimate the emotional toll of losing a place where people forge friendships, gather clans, and honor the tools and souvenirs of their ancestry.

Those who hunt from another man’s cabin feel a bond usually absent in his house. When thinking of my friend Tom Heberlein, for instance, I picture “Old T”—his hunting shack in northwestern Wisconsin. I lack that connection to his condo in Madison or his former home in Lodi.

You don’t even have to hunt from a man’s shack to grasp such connections. Thousands brag of visiting the Wisconsin River shack where Aldo Leopold once hunted, but few think about the university office where he wrote about it. Likewise, far more thousands yearn to see Walden’s stone hearth than they do the attic where Thoreau wrote about it.




Such bonds form fast and strong. Butler, for example, grew up in northwestern Indiana and settled in Missouri about a decade ago. The former executive director of the Conservation Federation of Missouri bought his dream-getaway property 215 miles to the southeast in 2016. He had fallen in love with nearby Echo Bluff State Park and the scenic Sinking Creek, a crystal-clear tributary of the Current River.

Butler spent much of the next five years building his cabin with help from his father, Bill; uncle, Tom; and friends like “Paddle” Don Cransfill, Nathan “Shags” McLeod, and Pete Medved, Bill’s Army buddy. After hiring a carpenter to frame the place in 2017, Butler and his crew took over, often “repurposing” lumber salvaged from the property’s abandoned farm buildings.

Meanwhile, Butler and McLeod began cohosting the Driftwood Outdoors Podcast, led rafting trips down the Current River, and hunted deer and turkeys on the property and nearby public lands. Butler killed the biggest buck of his life in those woods, and played host/guide for spring turkey hunts and July Fourth celebrations.




As they finished parts of the cabin, Butler admired his family’s tokens and expert craftsmanship wherever he turned. He decorated the place with framed samples of his children’s artwork, shoulder mounts of prized bucks, and family heirlooms such as his grandfather’s Folds of Honor flag from World War II. He also stocked bare spaces with countless antlers and cached prized collections of old hunting videos and DVDs by Will Primos, Bill Jordan, and Gene and Barry Wensel.

After finishing the cabin’s construction last summer, Butler signified the milestone by stacking rocks atop the property’s fenceposts. He and his crew gathered there often in the weeks that followed, including for Missouri’s gun-deer season in November.

As he and his friends relaxed on the porch one night, they saw a truck pull into a nearby field and turn the night into day with a light bar. When shots erupted from the truck, Butler jumped into his side-by-side to confront the violators. The truck sped off as Butler approached, but he got its license plate number. He filed a complaint on the shootings with the Missouri Department of Conservation, which is investigating.

Butler and McLeod detailed the incident of Nov. 17 on Episode 64 of their Driftwood Outdoors Podcast. He’s certain an arsonist torched his cabin in retaliation for reporting the illegal shooting. In an email Jan. 13 to the Springfield News-Leader newspaper, the county’s sheriff, Darrin Brawley, confirmed the fire was set intentionally.

Butler cannot discuss the case’s specifics while it’s being investigated. He said, however, that he feels naïve about buying the property, building the cabin, and investing so much family treasure in it.




“I hate to sound like a martyr, but I should have never thought we would find peace and harmony there,” Butler said in a telephone interview Jan. 14. “The locals are clannish, they live by their own rules, there’s no cell phone service, and you’re 30 minutes from the nearest law-enforcement. The locals hate how the state park attracts people from the outside. They make it a point of pride to intimidate outsiders and protect their backwoods way of life. One person lit the match, but I blame their entire culture. People down there are celebrating what was done to me.”

Butler said he expects his insurance policy and a GoFundMe effort to cover his financial losses, but neither can replace what the fire burned.

“I can build a new building, but that won’t make me whole,” Butler said. “I’ll hold onto the memories, but I’ll never again sit in my grandfather’s dinner chair. I’ll never again hold the muzzleloader I used to shoot my first deer. I’ll never again read the stories my guests wrote in the pages of the camp’s  journal, and I’ll never again enjoy all my kids’ paintings in the collage over my bed.”

Butler won’t rebuild on the property, but hasn’t decided what to do instead. “I’m considering various ways to start over, but not there,” he said. “I could buy a bigger boat and donate more river trips to get more kids outdoors, or I could buy a camper and explore more places.”

While he considers his options and how much to donate to programs like Missouri’s Operation Game Thief, Butler expresses thanks for support he’s received nationwide.

“I’ve seen firsthand that true evil exists out there, and it’s hard to swallow what happened, but I’m more impressed by the overwhelming care people keep sharing,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to focus on.”

Sadly not an unknown problem.

Less extreme ones I know about involved slashing tires and cutting fences to allow livestock to escape.

That's messed up.  

Kinda like here too.  Big landowners feel they have a "right" to hunt on your land because they've been doing it since childbirth.  I have a neighbor who has poachers on his land all the time and they're all locals.

Fucking methbillies

They see cabins like his as something "a rich guy from the city owns"

Sad...I hope they catch the responsible person(s).

cabins are constantly targeted by thieves around here too.  Habits to support ...

It sucks about his property, and fuck poachers, but at the same time I can see where the locals wouldn't give a shit. He was an outsider, he just showed up where they lived just to have fun in his cabin, and didn't live there and get to know the locals.

The backwoods isn't a city where people come and go on a regular basis. You have to establish yourself to the locals and showing up two weeks a year isn't the way to do it.

But yeah, fuck poachers.

Guess that Ozark Netflix show portrays the Ozark people as they really are. That's fucked up!
Entitlement. It's only going to get worse.

Sometimes things, even arson, don't need to be reported

Damn, that's sad.

I spent some time down that way. It was hard to believe I was in the United States.

Nah bro, that show is very generous to the locals.

Let me guess, the local poachers and poacher sympathizers are all the town idiots who work at the one and only manufacturing plant. They go the bars all the time and piss away their paychecks and act like they are all hot shit?

I have no problem with country living but I do have a problem with trespassers and poachers. They won’t stop because they think they have a right to anyone’s land. I have family who has dealt with this exact type.

This.

Hopefully our surrounding neighbors at our cabin don't feel that way about me. We're the only ones that don't live in the area, and only come up once a month or so. We have the nicest riverfront property in the area too. When a 30" Oak fell last year, I was the only younger guy with a 24" Husky bucking it up. They seemed to appreciate the help. Hopefully they don't burn our place down.

That's backwards and fucking retarded, but hey, West Virginia checking in I guess

‘Missouri Poacher Found Eaten By Ants, Coyotes & Vultures’ should be the headlines in a month or so.

My uncle who has investigated arson for decades tell me who usually does this stuff.

Should probably wait till the investigation is over before donating to his gofundme.

Too many of the wrong people surviving and breeding.  We don't show this much blind-deaf-dumb compassion for wild or domesticated animals when hey misbehave so much....why do we have to tolerate so much misbehavior from people who aren't that much smarter or act any better than uncivilized animals?

I'd be hunting over bait.

Lawlessness cuts both ways.

If I (hopefully) didn’t know better, I’d say you are ok with what happened, because he was an “outsider”. Do I have that correct?

“nearby field”

Not his land, if he had MYOB he’d be all set and somebody would be illegally eating a deer in peace.  Right or wrong it’s a bad idea to start trouble with locals at your fancy vacation home / hunting cabin.  It’s hard enough to deal with unemployed lowlifes when you are physically present 24/7.

Give the locals a fair shake and they'll reciprocate. Act like a dick and don't be surprised when your cabin burns down when you're back home.

But people also need to understand that local tradition might trump property lines and laws. People that have been hunting the same patch of 250 acres their whole lives might simply ignore the "No Hunting" signs some new absentee landowner puts up.  It's just the way it goes in rural areas and urbanites who buy a wilderness playground need to understand that.

no I'm not, but I understand the mentality of areas where property lines exist only on some plat map in the county assessor's office and outsiders need to understand that is the world they are entering.

Lol West Virginia

Fuck hillbilly rednecks and their poaching friends. Seems logical because I guess nobody locally could afford to buy that land being low rent trash. Like life, those that are without want to ruin or take form those that have things.

He is just stating the obvious, he didnt say he condoned it.  Its no different here in OK, small towns and rural areas are very cliquish, you being in TX should understand this.

Eh.  Maybe.  But predictable.  If you own rural land but are an absentee landlord, other people will make use of it.

I used to own 465 acres in Arkansas that was 5 hours away from me.  Was told by the realtor that if we posted no trespassing signs that all it would accomplish is people cutting the fences.  Guy said our ponds would be fished out in 4 weeks or less.  

Legal title to the rural land doesn’t mean squat if you aren’t there continually to enforce your property rights.

And they'd be right in many cases...like the way the Chicago suburbs invaded northern Wisconsin...

I grew up with kids who would have done this but the citidiots have been known to rob local hunters of their deer at gun point too...happened to my boss and my brother years ago...

Attached File

Always good to find a local caretaker to look after your stuff and pay him to do so...

It's the same around here.  My FILs place has been broken into 3 times now.

Every thread about someone moving to another state has people talk about how they are full and they don't need your big city ideas.

lm looking at relocating to that area when I retire in a few years. I haven't bought anything yet because I don't want to be 6 hours away. It is a beautiful part if the country. I looked at some land last summer up the road from echo bluff state park.

That’s why you pick a local and trade him access to it if he will enforce your rights. It’s as simple as letting the neighbor hay it or cut firewood.

Neanderthals.  People can't evolve or adapt to changing in their circumstances.  Thankfully, also the first ones to die when shit hits the fan.  "I'm gonna keep hunting here 'cause that's where my daddy used to hunt in 1964!"  Well it ain't 1964 and you ain't your daddy.  I hope law enforcement nails your ass to the wall.

... FFS.

But too many absentee landowners think of it as buying in suburbia. If there's a problem, I'll just call 911 and the cops will show up. Well, no the won't when there are two deputies for a county that is the size of Rhode Island when it's hammered flat and they have traffic accidents, meth, domestic calls, and the like to serve. Poachers aren't a priority for them or the locals unless the poachers are spotlighting or something. No one is going to care if Bubba is taking a deer or two a year to feed his family, especially when he's been hunting that same spot his whole life because it was some mine or forestry company's land before you bought it for your private playground.

So a truck with a light bar at night on someone elses property is a poacher? And he needs to confront and report them?

I want to feel sorry for the guy but this sure seems like a MYOB lesson. He stuck his nose in someone elses business, got his peepee slapped, and now wants people to feel sorry for him.

The “locals” are not owed jack shit of anything not on their property, to include a “fair shake”. Respect the law or expect a trespassers welcome.

Heard the story on Rinella’s podcast Monday.

Low life, white trash pieces of shit are the worst kind of trash.

I don't act like a dick, but my property is my property and thankfully have cameras that have kept people off our land (we're a dead-end, no trespassing, 8 homes total, so everyone knows everyone) and the neighbor and I agreed to share the fishing hole that is on both our property lines when we bought the place 6 years back. He uses it a lot more than I, since we are never there.

Yeah fuck both of you.  Not this. You don’t have to establish shit to any fucking locals, or anyone.  If a man buys land, he owns it and doesn’t need the permission of anyone to enjoy it and do with it what he pleases.

Im sure the OWNER of the land might care what happens on THEIR land. You cannot be this fucking obtuse.

So it doesn't matter if you live in the big city or out in the middle of no where.  You will meet assholes everywhere?

The solution being put forth is to bend over for the locals and then it's all good..

Gotta love that freedom!!

Being upset when poachers come on your land at night, that you work hard and paid for to poach, is being a dick?

Give locals a fair shake? What,? by letting them use your property how they see fit?

Maybe if they wanted to hunt that land they shouldn't be poor and bought it

Lol fuck no.
Thats the most retarded shit I've read here today.

I can see it but they are still shit bags for having that mentality.  I have every right to purchase and enjoy any piece of private land for sale in the USA no matter where I'm from whenever I want.

Anyone who can't respect those clear and obvious rights doesn't deserve to breath free air.  They are about on the same level as commie scum who are trying to take my rights away from another angle.

Dealing with poaching cock suckers on two of our pieces of land. The one we are currently living on has a beautiful early 1800s farm house. The other is very much like a mountain chalet.

So anyway we think we have it pretty much under control now. Until 2 weeks ago I hike up the mountain to a little spot we've talked about putting a small kind of hang out, have drinks, watch the sun set is the valley below type place....... On the way upnI pass a fkn tree stand literally in sight of posted signs of ours and the neighbor! I hike about another 1/4 mile to the site and someone built a fucking picnic table up there! Its standard size but half the length.

So now idk what the plan is but im fuming mad.

Staying the fuck off of my land isn’t a big city idea.

I bet the arsonists share the same views when it comes to their fancy single wide.