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ibycus

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if you leave a personal artifact in a public place, I don't think the law will protect you if someone picks it up

Do you own a bike ? If you "pick up" things that belong to someone else you may be charged with theft.

 

If you leave an empty can of pop in a park, and someone else picks it up, is that theft? That can has a real monetary value (5 cents deposit in Alberta), but I don't think anyone would charge that person with theft.

 

When someone takes your cache they are stealing it. Property is protected under the laws of most countries. If I leave my bike sitting in the park unattended and you pick it up, you are stealing it.

 

If you leave your bike in a non designated location, for 6 months, unattended (maybe you come by to visit every couple of months), and someone picks it up, to throw it out (or perhaps you've left your name on your bike, and they are going to return it to you), is that theft? I would say no. That is cleaning up the parks.

 

The cache is never the property of anyone else other than the person who placed it. The caches you place are your property, they are your responsibility, they are yours, those who pick them up are stealing them. Private property is not a function of proximity, it is property. The cabin on Lake of the Woods that you visit for one week every two years is your property, you do not need to worry about being there to retain ownership, proximity has nothing to do with property.

 

Yeah but you didn't leave your cabin on public lands did you? You presumably own the land around the cabin as well, so your analogy is hopelessly flawed. Now, if you owned the land your cache was on, I would agree with you. I believe, but don't know exactly where, that there are sections in the law about abandoned property.

 

This is not an opinion, it is fact.

 

You say this a lot, but are you a lawyer? I'm not.

 

When the police stop you and you explain you were enroute to return my bike you will still be charged with theft.

 

And when I tell them the bicycle has been there for 6 months, they'll charge you with littering.

 

If what you say is true, then a whole lot of geocachers are guilty of 'theft' when they CITO.

 

Most geocache owners understand this simple straightforward fact, people who steal geocaches may be called muggles but they are thieves.

 

Or they see some box of junk that was left in the park, and decide to clean it up. Like I said, if they're a theif then so are most geocachers who've ever CITO'd an area. I saw a busted up vacuum cleaner in a park the other day, and thew away some of the pieces, does that make me a thief? How do I know the owner wasn't visiting the vacuum every day to see how it was doing?

 

a private database of their own

Do you understand FOIP ?

 

Not really, do you? I'm assuming PC does though, so if any suggestions I make aren't compatible with FOIP, then I'm sure I'll hear about it.

 

Do you intend to tell me that in this policy workgroup you are going to suggest that Parks Canada get an account on all the commercial listing services, and pay for it I presume, and then have a staff member from the Parks run PQ's and try to figure things out for themselves ? Do you think they should go to Terracaching.com and put in a sponsor request now ?

 

Did I say that? I don't think I said that, but maybe it was one of my other personalities.

 

My feeling is that if the whole anonymity thing is a problem, then before being allowed to place a cache in the parks, the cacher in question needs to go talk to a Parks person, and disclose to them their real name, and caching handle, and maybe sign a little thing that says "I will be good". This has the advantage that it is independent of any listing org, and is relatively low impact on the parks people.

 

Thousands of views and hundreds of posts on the Issue of Abandoned Caches thread right here in the Canada forum should indicate that it is not as simple as some would like to make it. In that discussion the complication of the area being a National Park and the need being irrefutable isn't established, they are just talking about caches around Niagra Falls that may be abandoned. They are not even sure they are abandoned because commercial listing services are not interested in identifying caches that have been abandoned, that would require some sort of sytem, the system would cost money and effort, that would affect the bottom line, something an abandoned cache does not do. It is easy to abandon caches and it happens a lot and it really isn't a simple fix.

 

This is just a single point that may impact Park policy.

 

Or maybe its simpler than some would have us believe. Does anyone here have hard facts on what the law is regarding property left on public lands for extended periods? I don't. I tried googling, but came up empty handed.

Edited by ibycus
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