In a couple of those cases a fine or a fee for rescue is appropriate. The guy that falsely claimed a medical emergency should be prosecuted IMO. SAR didn't want to sent a chopper for safety reasons, so sending 'em out when it's not safe risks lives for no reason.

My opinion is that egregious conduct resulting in a SAR callout should be prosecuted criminally, especially when someone makes knowingly false claims. But as with all laws, I also believe that the law should spell out clearly what is and is not egregious.

Close to where I used to live, North Shore Rescue (busiest SAR in North America) have had a longstanding policy on why SAR does not charge for rescue.

https://www.northshorerescue.com/about-us/not-charging-rescues/

Thanks for a well reasoned, cogently statement on this position. Their position is absolutely correct.

As a former SAR member in Colorado her a small fee is levied on hunting and fishing license for SAR , Hikers etc can purchase rescue coverage also

Aksar mentioned criminal activity. On at least two occasions, we were involved in rescuing victims involved in criminal activity, in one case at significant risk to all involved. Rescue first and ask questions later.....

Not all victims are blameless little darlings.

I don’t recall mentioning “criminal activity”. Please don’t credit me with statements I didn’t make.

One of the linked articles did notethat NPS is pressing charges against the MD for making false statements and trying to delete text messages associated with those statements.

Unless the bogus calls are excessive, the SAR group could write the bogus call off as training. I think just certain areas where popularity leads to increased amount of visitors and some of those visitors, due to "normalcy bias" do go out unprepared and cause an excessive amount of calls.

What I r3callfrom my SAR exprieence is the unpredictability of the evnt at the outset. Routine calls become major events and what seem like big deals become trivial. All provide valuable experience (= training).

We endured a spate of bogus ca.lls at one time. Turned out that the perps were some of our own trainees, a little too eager for action. A generous donation of gear halted further action by thee sheriff.....

Apologies...poor phrasing on my part...