Mushroom Licenses

Are you soon going to need a license to pick wild mushrooms in Illinois? That was what an email press release that circulated around last week stated. The email claimed that mushroom hunters would have to get a license from the same vendors that sell hunting and fishing licenses, and that revenue from the license sales would benefit biological and archaeological research in Illinois. The email prompted dozens of people to call the Illinois Natural Resources Department to complain. Today a Department spokeswoman, Gayle Simpson, denied that any such licenses were going to be required. In other words, the email was a hoax.

Email Hoaxes Law/Police/Crime

Posted on Mon Apr 04, 2005


Comments

A license to pick mushrooms? Elves, Gnomes, Ewoks, and strange little European people all over Illinois would be devastated by the news!
Posted by Barghest  on  Tue Apr 05, 2005  at  07:40 PM
that's a stupid thing to hoax about, but, in Washington State, you are supposed to have a mushroom picking permit/license...not that I ever do. I believe there may be a stipulation that you are allowed to get up to 5 gallons per day for self-use without the required permit, but you are not allowed to sell them. So far, no one I know in the wild-food industry has a permit, and few people are confronted about it. Seems that the only time you hear reports of agents making a bust, they always seem to be Mexican. So maybe Washington is just guilty of selective enforcement in a racially profiling manner? All I know is, I've been picking for years, and selling, and have never had a permit of any sort, and have never been bothered. Now, for picking brush (salal, ferns, etc) you'd better have a permit, because you will get busted for that, and many buyers will not buy from you if you don't have a valid permit, which runs about $350 per year!
Posted by catlady  on  Wed Apr 06, 2005  at  06:45 PM
Wouldn't you have to have a rather large family to consume five gallons of mushrooms a day? Or would you be 'personally' using them for something else? Faerie houses or easy chairs for hamsters, I don't know....

A cave-troll couldn't eat that many mushrooms per day.
Posted by Barghest  on  Thu Apr 07, 2005  at  08:16 PM
In parts of the state (my native region, especially), "morel hunting" is huge. I'm guessing that's what the hoax is meant to target. It's a kind of wild mushroom with a very distinctive shape and flavor. I can't stand them, but some people will pick bucket loads of them. There's only a week or two between when they're big enough to be picked and when they start dying off. Most people fry them, but I've heard of people canning them.
Posted by laughingfuzzball  on  Mon Dec 17, 2007  at  01:58 PM
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