One of largest poaching cases in Wyoming uncovered by suspicious request, officials say
Three men orchestrated one of the largest poaching operations in Wyoming’s history that spanned four counties and resulted in more than 100 violations, officials said.
After they realized law enforcement was on to their scheme, the men went to extremes to hide their violations, according to a Wyoming Game and Fish Department news release.
The men bought Wyoming resident hunting licenses using a Wyoming address, but they lived in Alabama, Oklahoma and South Dakota, the release said.
A suspicious request
In 2015, one of them asked for an interstate game tag to ship a deer head to Alabama for taxidermy work, officials said. It was a suspicious request considering the hunter had listed a Wyoming address when he purchased resident hunting licenses for years before then.
The game warden in Gillette started unraveling “the case that would eventually identify dozens of wildlife violations in four different counties in Wyoming.”
Investigators pieced together information from the hunter’s cellphone records and social media pages, which ended up implicating his acquaintance in Oklahoma and that man’s son in South Dakota, the release said.
For years, they had shared the same Gillette address on applications for resident hunting licenses and preference points, officials said.
“Investigating and successfully prosecuting a case of this size and scope required years of effort by many individuals and agencies,” Game and Fish chief game warden Rick King said in a statement. “Dozens of people worked hard to make sure that even though some of these violations occurred a decade or more ago, they would not go unpunished.”
Poached mammals, reptiles and birds
In 2017, law enforcement and wildlife officials searched the men’s homes in Alabama, South Dakota and Oklahoma and confiscated elk, deer, pronghorn and a bighorn sheep ram mount, the release said.
They also uncovered violations of Alabama law associated with the man’s taxidermy shop and confiscated poached alligators and migratory birds, the release said.
Officials said they later learned he had stashed more than a dozen wildlife mounts in a trailer over 60 miles away from his home. This included three bull moose and three bighorn sheep rams, the release said.
Across four Wyoming counties, the Alabama man was charged with 43 poaching violations dating to 2003, over $113,000 in fines and ordered to pay $87,000 in restitution. He spent more than a year in jail and was banned from hunting and fishing for life.
The Oklahoma man faced many but not all of the same charges dating to 2003. Across three counties, he was charged with more than 35 poaching violations, $46,060 in fines and ordered to pay $36,550 in restitution. His jail sentence was 50 days, and his hunting and fishing privileges were revoked for life.
His son in South Dakota was charged with more than a dozen of wildlife violations dating to 2005. He was fined $12,045 and ordered to pay $8,035 in restitution. His hunting, fishing and trapping privileges were revoked for five years in Weston County and his hunting privileges revoked for another 15 in Campbell County, “beginning at the end of his five-year suspension from Weston County.”
All three were charged with trespassing on private property to hunt.
The Alabama man surrendered multiple mounts, including four bull elk, one buck antelope, three buck mule deer and one gull, and dozens of poached animals including three bighorn sheep rams, three moose, seven elk, eight antelope, one mule deer and one walrus mask.
The Oklahoma man gave up eight buck mule deer, two bull elk, a cow elk and a bobcat. The South Dakota man “forfeited a bighorn sheep ram shoulder mount, three buck antelope, eagle parts, elk antlers, elk meat and two buck mule deer.”
State statute requires the $171,230 in fines to go to public school funds in the counties where the violations took place. It also requires the $131,550 in restitution to go to a Wyoming Game and Fish Department account that is used to buy access easements to public and private land, the release says.
And because 48 other states participate in the Wildlife Violator Compact, the men’s hunting and fishing licenses are revoked in all 49 states.
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