{"id":296125,"date":"2026-02-22T03:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296125\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T03:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:43:09","slug":"this-is-why-we-close-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296125\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThis Is Why We Close Seasons\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Five men were detained on Saturday morning in the Los Tambos area, Cayo District, for illegally hunting deer during the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/selling-iguana-be-ready-to-pay-up-10k\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">closed season.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Photographs released by the Belize Forest Department to News 5 show three adult white-tailed deer laid out on a blue tarp, including one female deer that had already been skinned.<\/p>\n<p>Forest officers said the skinned doe was pregnant. The unborn twins had been removed from her womb.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-83135\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2-Grid-View-14-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Pregnant Deer with Twins Killed: \u201cThis Is Why We Close Seasons\u201d\" width=\"1589\" height=\"895\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>A live fawn was also found in the group\u2019s possession.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is why we close seasons because they are pregnant or with young, and it is illegal to hunt when they are in these stages,\u201d said Victoria Chi, a department\u2019s forest officer.<\/p>\n<p>Deer hunting is currently prohibited under the Wildlife Protection Act. Female deer are protected from July 1 to February 28 of the next year, while males may only be hunted between 1 October and 30 June.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/price-controls-lifted-on-packaged-sugar-pm-says\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/vlcsnap-2026-01-21-18h39m53s169-300x169.jpg\"  alt=\"Price Controls Lifted on Packaged Sugar, PM Says\"\/><\/a>Trending<a class=\"monsterinsights-inline-popular-posts-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/price-controls-lifted-on-packaged-sugar-pm-says\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Price Controls Lifted on Packaged Sugar, PM Says<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Offences carry fines of up to $10,000 or one year\u2019s imprisonment. Members of the public can report illegal hunting to 610-1524.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 7,090&#13;\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five men were detained on Saturday morning in the Los Tambos area, Cayo District, for illegally hunting deer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-296125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}