Feral human rights- the uncivil rights movement

Main
#1

Over the past few years, I’ve really put a lot of thought into setting up something like a feralculture node. I’ve spent thousands of hours researching other communities, looking at land, trying to build tribe, and practicing the skills I’ll need to live closer to harmony with Nature.

Other than the financial startup costs thing, I’m ready to hit the ground running but there’s one topic that is really complicating things. In the US, and I’m sure in other countries, it’s illegal to sleep outside on your own land, hunt, and fish, without paying for permits and licenses. Even if you buy a permit to camp on your own land, you’re still required to have a permitted septic system installed, and you have to have acquired a building permit. Only once all of these expensive conditions are met can you temporarily legally camp on your land. For hunting and fishing, licenses, tags, predetermined areas and seasons, and bag limits all make hunter gatherer life illegal and nearly impossible.

I think we may be putting the cart before the horse by thinking about node locations when the lifestyle we want the nodes to help enable is totally illegal.

We have a few options.

  1. Gather groups together to try and use the system proactively to secure feral human rights. I don’t know if there are lawyers with souls though, and they’ll definitely be needed, so that might be a catch 22.

  2. Do what we want right out in the open and fight reactively to set court precedent that protects our rights.

  3. Keep looking for the perfect locations and collaborators that will allow the nodes to fly under the radar.

  4. Set up some kind of religious status.

  5. Only set up nodes in super remote places with no codes/enforceable hunting laws.

3mules.com is a site documenting the travels of a guy that travels up and down the west coast on foot, with his two mules. He’s been getting tickets for existing in the “wrong” places for years and he wins them consistently. I think that, possibly just in California, precedent has been set that says people can sleep in public places if they’re not doing anything else illegal. This may apply to nodes and other states too. Sadly, I’d need a lawyer to figure that out.

As far as hunting and fishing goes, I just broke down and bought a fishing license, I typially only hunt on private property, and when I do, I cook and eat it immediately. I also eat a lot of bugs. Subsistence hunting and fishing will need to be clearly defined and legislated before we can really grow the feralculture movement.

Anyway, I just wanted to bring this up and see what ideas others have about the legality aspects of this project.

1 Like
#2

Isn’t the acceptable use (e.g., camping) highly susceptible to variation by jurisdiction (state, county, and city)? In Alaska, it’s arguably legal to camp on state land for traditional and/or subsistence purposes indefinitely.

2 Likes
#3

The tiny house movement is almost entirely confined by the various county regulations stipulating what constitutes an exempt structure for purposes of septic and permitting. It seems some folks in that genre would have some answers. Though I suspect that it’s impossible even for tiny houses to exist in all places.

Is the official Earthship list of friendly US counties still online? That might help.

#4

In every state I’ve lived in, there are county codes that limit camping on private land. On forest and blm land, unless stated otherwise, the limit is 14 days then you have to move 15 or 25 (can’t remember) miles. If they catch you moving back and forth too many times, or suspect it, they give expensive tickets for residential camping. It’s really tough in AZ because of all of the snowbirds and rubber tramps.

The state land is usually day use only, unless it’s a paid camp ground.

#5

The tiny house folks have a pretty tough time. They find spots where they get away with it but it’s rarely legal. Most of the properties for sale in Ash Fork, AZ that have tiny homes on them get put up for sale within a year or so because the county flies over for tax assessment every year and boots the people that didn’t get permits, are camping, didn’t put in a septic.

I remember the earthship county map. I hope there’s an updated version.

#6

If I were you, I wouldn’t risk putting money into a node with possibly very restricted activities. I’d eaither:

  1. Keep looking for the perfect locations and collaborators that will allow the nodes to fly under the radar.

or, preferably,

  1. Only set up nodes in super remote places with no codes/enforceable hunting laws.

Setting up a node in a very remote place solves all problems with civilization. If you have one or two unwanted contacts per YEAR, or none at all, well… the state just doesn’t exist for you. And I’ve been in places that weren’t visited for years at a time (I know because that was a turf hut with a guest book). Keep some 50km minimum from the nearest road/town and you’ll be fine. And if you actually legally own the land… well, you’re untouchable. Who would you have to meet to get reported and fined? I think if someone finds your place they’ll rather be begging for food and shelter and not even dare to ask about any legal stuff.

Liras

2 Likes
#7

A huge percentage of potential participants wouldn’t be able to make it that far from town. I know that the goal is to develop a culture that’s completely independent of civ but for now, until we have enviroments where we can escape, learn, heal, and evolve, pretty much everyone will need to visit town once or twice a month.

I spent a few hours updating my research on camping on private property laws and it’s bleak. Unless some laws get changed, the possibility of having a legal node in the contiguous US is very unlikely. I want out of this damn country so bad. I really wish I knew more people in Mexico.

3 Likes
#8

I’ve been down the reactive path. And it’s tough. I own my own place and am unable to live there without putting in a septic. This is land that has been in my family for 60+ years, and the rules only started about 10 years back. My friend has the county and a variety of officials in Federal court right now for violating both state laws, basic legal procedures, and the 4th Amendment. We’ll see what comes of that.

2 Likes
#9

What if we work within the system we hate, until we can get it where we want it? For my future (saving for currently) Wildstead (like a home stead but for a rewilding family), we will have septic and a log cabin, yes we will build it with a permit, until that is no longer needed.

I already lost one place by not playing with the system. And as Much as I hate it, I wont loss another due to that.

#10

I’ve returned to working minimally within the system that I hate for now, only because very few others in the rewilding movement have the courage to walk their talk, but I can see the light to freedom at the end of the tunnel, and it doesn’t involve private property, permits, or codes, at all. By working within the system to hold and develop private property, ten times more of the value a person creates goes directly towards supporting the system than they can ever put towards dismantling it and making it obsolete. The humans of the future, if any survive the collapse of civilization, will likely be minimalist and semi nomadic. I figure that it’s the way we evolved for a long time and is more fun and healthy than living in civ, so there’s no reason not to start getting good at being a sustainably self sufficient nomad right now. Any property I do get “control” of won’t be developed in any way that will have any negative impact upon Nature, so people concerned with codes shouldn’t have any reason to be concerned about it.

Permits are only required for activities normally associated with civilization that cause environmental disruption and damage or could potentially harm others. For instance, someone at some point decided that people that want to poop in the same place every day need some kind of authority structure to keep them safe from their own ignorance, laziness, and hubris, so a permit system is necessary to fund the authority system that manages those people that don’t know how to live in collaboration with Nature. A person that randomly craps in different strategical locations, composting their waste in such a way that it benefits the environment doesn’t have to be concerned about permits, and rightly so, because no authority system is necessary to manage their behavior. Driving automobiles is terribly dangerous and damaging to the environment so we have to have licenses to drive where walking or riding a bike is safe and environmentally friendly, so no license required. This process echoes throughout civilization.

While I wish humans could live freely, the large majority of the population has been too epigenetically devolved by years of civlization to survive at all without government, money, property, religion, and agriculture. It would be great to turn off all of the support systems that they depend upon and create and let the laws of nature sort things out, but it’s unlikely that there would be a habitable place left on Earth if we took that route. Conscious breeding and an extreme and viral cultural adjustment initiated by those leading by example will be the only way our species survives, outside of alien intervention.

Basically, people working within the system they hate, ARE the system they hate. Life is full of compromises but if I can remove support for a monster that’s devolving and threatening my species, I have to do my best to live alternatives if I want to sleep well at night.

1 Like
#11

I came across this in the Arizona Revised Statutes.

https://www.azleg.gov/viewdocument/?docName=https://www.azleg.gov/ars/17/00238.htm

"17-238. Special licenses for field trials, for shooting preserves and for collecting or holding wildlife in captivity

A. The commission may adopt rules and regulations and issue licenses for the conduct of field trials, shooting preserves, private wildlife farms and zoos, or for the personal use and possession of wildlife so as to safeguard the interests of the wildlife and people of the state.

B. The commission, at its discretion and under such regulations as it deems necessary, may issue a permit to take wildlife for scientific purposes to any person or duly accredited representative of public educational or scientific institutions, or governmental departments of the United States engaged in the scientific study of wildlife.

C. A person holding a permit issued pursuant to this section may, upon advance approval by the commission, buy, sell and transport wildlife legally possessed. Each person receiving a permit under this section shall file with the department within fifteen days after requested by the department a report of his activities under the permit. The commission may revoke such licenses or permits for noncompliance with regulations. "

This looks like section A and B could be used to grant special hunting licenses to projects like Feralculture!

#12

I also wrote this up, based upon another bill that someone proposed in Virginia in 2007.

Primitive Hunting Bill

____________

[Introduced _________; referred to the Committee on Natural Resources; and then to the Committee on Finance.]

____________

A BILL to amend the Code of Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 17, 2018, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated 17-238D, relating to establishing a primitive weapons hunting seasons; and providing for the issuance of a primitive weapons hunting license.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of Arizona:
That the Arizona Revised Statutes, 2018, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated 17-238D, to read as follows:
Title 17 Game and Fish

17-238 D. Class Z resident and Class ZZ non-resident primitive weapon deer hunting licenses.

A Class Z license shall be a resident primitive weapon hunting license. A Class ZZ license shall be nonresident primitive weapon hunting license. A Class Z and ZZ license shall entitle the licensee to hunt for and kill in season animals with a primitive weapon during primitive weapon seasons in the state provided that the applicant pass a primitive hunting proficiency test. The director shall establish the test program and rules governing the issuance of Class Z and Class ZZ licenses as necessary to limit, on a fair and equitable basis, the number of persons who may primitive weapon hunt for game in any special management area. There shall be seasons of at least twenty one days each year for the taking of animals with primitive weapons as authorized by the Director of Natural Resources.
Only primitive weapons authorized by the Director of Natural Resources may be used during primitive weapons deer season. The licenses shall be issued in a form prescribed by the director, are in addition to a Class A, Class AB or Class E license and are valid only when accompanied thereby. The fee for the Class Z license is ten dollars. The fee for the Class ZZ license is fifty dollars.

**NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to establish primitive weapons seasons, and to provide for the issuance of a primitive weapons hunting license allowing citizens to preserve ancestral knowledge and advance sustainable conservation knowledge. **

Reference sample:
17-238. Special licenses for field trials, for shooting preserves and for collecting or holding wildlife in captivity
A. The commission may adopt rules and regulations and issue licenses for the conduct of field trials, shooting preserves, private wildlife farms and zoos, or for the personal use and possession of wildlife so as to safeguard the interests of the wildlife and people of the state.
B. The commission, at its discretion and under such regulations as it deems necessary, may issue a permit to take wildlife for scientific purposes to any person or duly accredited representative of public educational or scientific institutions, or governmental departments of the United States engaged in the scientific study of wildlife.
**C. A person holding a permit issued pursuant to this section may, upon advance approval by the commission, buy, sell and transport wildlife legally possessed. Each person receiving a permit under this section shall file with the department within fifteen days after requested by the department a report of his activities under the permit. The commission may revoke such licenses or permits for noncompliance with regulations. **
D. A primitive weapons hunting license will be issued to those able to pass primitive weapons proficiency training and pay the appropriate fee, ten dollars per year for residents and fifty dollars per year for non-residents. Each license will have a list of the primitive weapons that the applicant is licensed as proficient in, and may only use those weapons to hunt. “Primitive weapon proficiency” is defined as: The ability to use a primitive weapon to execute a clean and ethical kill on at least 7/10 attempts. The Director shall create a board to establish the types of allowed primitive weapons, which animals are allowed to be hunted, the time of year and length of the seasons, and the number of licenses to be issued for each season. These decisions will be decided based upon the best interest of the natural resources of the State. The intent of this section is to preserve ancient knowledge and allow for the expansion of knowledge regarding sustainable conservation techniques. License fees will be used to fund the testing and licensing programs.