By Elena Durnbaugh
Gongwer News Service
Hunters cannot use drones to find downed animals, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a recent decision that upholds Michigan’s ban on using drones to hunt.
Mike Yoder and his company, Drone Deer Recovery, and a potential customer, Jeremy Funke, sued the Department of Natural Resources over the ban in Yoder v. Scott Bowen, No. 24-1593.
Their argument was prohibiting drones to hunt or collect downed deer violates their free-speech rights because it prevents the company from using a drone to communicate location information to a hunter.
The district court dismissed their complaint for a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for a failure to state a claim. The 6th Circuit affirmed the decision, ruling that although Yoder and Funke have standing, they failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted.
Judge Andre Mathis wrote a concurring opinion, arguing that Yoder and Funke could not show the required injury in fact as there was not a credible threat of enforcement from the DNR.
Michigan statute prohibits the use of drones to hunt or take downed game because such conduct "would violate fair-chase principles and take away from the spirit and tradition of ethical hunting and fishing." As such, the drone statute prohibits individuals from using drones to locate or recover injured game, specifically stating that "[a]ttempting to locate and/or recover game, either dead or wounded, is an act which falls within the definition of 'take.'"
Yoder and Funke alleged that the statute, as applied to them, violated their First Amendment right to create, disseminate, and receive location information for downed game. The district court determined that using drones to track downed game and relaying location information to a hunter were separable, so it examined only whether using a drone to search the wilderness for downed game was protected speech. The court ruled it was not.
The 6th Circuit did not agree that flying drones was separable from creating and disseminating location information in this specific circumstance, but it found that prohibition didn't rise to the level of a First Amendment violation for several reasons.
First, the drone statute was not content-based; second, drones are not speech inputs; and third, flying a drone is not inherently expressive conduct, the court ruled.
Finally, the court determined that the drone statute restricts First Amendment expression no more than necessary and is narrowly tailored to protect Michigan's natural resources and preserve fair-chase principles in hunting.
"Making an exception for using drones to create location information for downed game might not necessarily threaten those interests. But '[t]he First Amendment does not bar application of a neutral regulation that incidentally burdens speech merely because a party contends that allowing an exception in the particular case will not threaten important government interests,'" the decision said, quoting United States v. Albertini.
Gongwer News Service
Hunters cannot use drones to find downed animals, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a recent decision that upholds Michigan’s ban on using drones to hunt.
Mike Yoder and his company, Drone Deer Recovery, and a potential customer, Jeremy Funke, sued the Department of Natural Resources over the ban in Yoder v. Scott Bowen, No. 24-1593.
Their argument was prohibiting drones to hunt or collect downed deer violates their free-speech rights because it prevents the company from using a drone to communicate location information to a hunter.
The district court dismissed their complaint for a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for a failure to state a claim. The 6th Circuit affirmed the decision, ruling that although Yoder and Funke have standing, they failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted.
Judge Andre Mathis wrote a concurring opinion, arguing that Yoder and Funke could not show the required injury in fact as there was not a credible threat of enforcement from the DNR.
Michigan statute prohibits the use of drones to hunt or take downed game because such conduct "would violate fair-chase principles and take away from the spirit and tradition of ethical hunting and fishing." As such, the drone statute prohibits individuals from using drones to locate or recover injured game, specifically stating that "[a]ttempting to locate and/or recover game, either dead or wounded, is an act which falls within the definition of 'take.'"
Yoder and Funke alleged that the statute, as applied to them, violated their First Amendment right to create, disseminate, and receive location information for downed game. The district court determined that using drones to track downed game and relaying location information to a hunter were separable, so it examined only whether using a drone to search the wilderness for downed game was protected speech. The court ruled it was not.
The 6th Circuit did not agree that flying drones was separable from creating and disseminating location information in this specific circumstance, but it found that prohibition didn't rise to the level of a First Amendment violation for several reasons.
First, the drone statute was not content-based; second, drones are not speech inputs; and third, flying a drone is not inherently expressive conduct, the court ruled.
Finally, the court determined that the drone statute restricts First Amendment expression no more than necessary and is narrowly tailored to protect Michigan's natural resources and preserve fair-chase principles in hunting.
"Making an exception for using drones to create location information for downed game might not necessarily threaten those interests. But '[t]he First Amendment does not bar application of a neutral regulation that incidentally burdens speech merely because a party contends that allowing an exception in the particular case will not threaten important government interests,'" the decision said, quoting United States v. Albertini.
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