Poachers in the Elkhorns

[Nameless Range]

If an individual kills an elk legally, and in the same day is involved in the poaching of another, should that individual get to keep the legally killed one?

I understand a crime is specific, and a punishment of association based on a temporal criteria will seem arbitrary, but I think it should be season based. If you poach or are involved in the poaching of a critter in any given season, you should have all of your critters from that season confiscated, legally killed or not.

I really can see how this happened, and they made bad worse by lying and trying to cover it up, but the punishments aren't nearly strong enough. A poacher went home with a trophy bull last weekend.

http://helenair.com/news/local/caught-poaching-bull-elk-saturday/article_c8f6db00-5e49-11e3-a582-001a4bcf887a.html

 

[putm2sleep]

If an individual is around and involved with a poaching - they are a poacher. Period. Take their critters and cut their lisc.

 

[npaden]

Pretty sad state of affairs overall.

Thought this quote in the article was the best.

“The suspect being interviewed by Warden Aldridge (Nehring) struggled to say anything truthful.”

Hard to believe that they let them off the hook for anything since they were obviously in the process of trying to cover up a crime.

There should be an offense for intentionally letting the Trophy class bull that they eventually shot and tagged suffer with a broken spine for hours while they were busy carrying off and hiding the poached bull. If it had wandered off and they weren't able to recover and finish it for a while that's one thing, but to intentionally leave it there suffering while they proceeded to do criminal activities is WAY different.

 

[MKotur325]

Letting any injured animal suffer for hours isn't right. Regardless of trophy quality. You put a bullet in it, be man enough to track it down and finish what you started. Period, End of Story. There is no excuse for dragging one elk out while a second suffers.

I drew that 380-20 Tag in '09. It was one of the least pleasant hunting districts I've ever hunted because of the Absolute lack of ethics displayed in over half the hunters I encountered there. Honestly, There are some big elk in that district; but I'll never apply for another tag in the Elkhorns.

 

[shoots-straight]

$2400 fine for the shooter, $870 each for the other two guys.

So IF you get caught in Montana poaching, a trophy elk hunt would cost you $4,140 for a couple of bulls, go and buy them back at the auction, for say another couple of hundred and your still in it for less than $5,000.

If you don't get caught, which is a high probability, then it cost you nothing other than the balls to do it.

 

[Lawnboy]

Whatever happened to the days when they would confiscate the truck, the weapon, and anything else involved in the infraction? Like Shoots said you'll never get behavior to change unless it begins to hurt. Seems like even our justice system is has become too politically correct.

MKotur325- I had a friend with the tag this year and he encountered the same. Groups of guys without the tag driving around and sneaking in on the bulls trying to call them and take pictures. While there is nothing illegal about it, it just is not right to mess others once in a lifetime chance all because you didn't draw and want to play "Will Primos"

 

[Nameless Range]

MKotur325 I'm sorry to hear that.

I've put in for that tag for almost 20 years now.

If I ever do get the tag it will be the first time I will have hunted the Elkhorns though. I live in their morning shadows, but unless I am chasing a big bull, hunting them is out of the question. They get hit far too hard for it to be enjoyable, and I wonder if they are the most heavily pressured district in the State. Near where I grew up, every weekend hundreds of Helenans would swarm the timber looking for their highly coveted spike bull, turning the Crystal, McClellan, and Warm Springs drainages into superhighways. No thanks.

 

[Muskeez]

Fines definitely should be stiffer for trophy class animals. Maybe they are there. In Iowa the fines for poaching a trophy class buck are stiffer, more $ per inch of antler.. makes sense. Loss of hunting privileges is often the biggest kick in the nuts you can do to these clowns, money doesn't always talk if they are used to buying their way out of things.

 

[shoots-straight]

Fines definitely should be stiffer for trophy class animals. Maybe they are there. In Iowa the fines for poaching a trophy class buck are stiffer, more $ per inch of antler.. makes sense. Loss of hunting privileges is often the biggest kick in the nuts you can do to these clowns, money doesn't always talk if they are used to buying their way out of things.

Muskeez, do you really think poachers are hurt by taking away their licenses? That's exactly what they didn't have. Poachers don't care about loosing what they don't need, a license to poach.

 

[Bugle 'Em In]

Forget the $$$, 2 years of no hunting...that's all? Its frustrating to see these "repercussions" on poaching...or should I say "lack there of".

 

[Rat Fink]

Easily the most overrated unit in the state, for many of the reasons listed above.

 

[CabinFever]

From generation to generation

 

[TheTone]

Maybe the best thing you can do when you don't agree with sentences for wildlife crime is try to talk with the judge or prosecutor that handled the case. They often have a wide range of what they can set for sentences and in my experience many of them don't take wildlife crimes as seriously as we would like.

 

[RobG]

Interesting comments below the main article...

 

[WapitiBob]

"If an individual kills an elk legally, and in the same day is involved in the poaching of another, should that individual get to keep the legally killed one?"

yes

 

[Topgun 30-06]

What WB said! The guy should have had the book thrown at him for the illegal bull, with the others charged as accessories, but you can't stretch things out and penalize a person when they didn't commit a violation because the old man had a license for the one he shot. If that bull wasn't tagged properly though, they should/would have cited him for that too.

 

[npaden]

So it's okay that he shot the bull and wounded it, then waited for several hours to help carry out and hide the illegal bull, then went back and finished off the legal bull?

 

[ThndrChkn]

"The elk didn't qualify as a trophy class bull?!!!!! WTF??

IMO, ANY branch antlered bull elk taken ANYWHERE, regardless should be classified as trophy class... There are ALOT of hunters out there that consider any branch antlered bull elk
a trophy...

Because when a poacher takes one, even a young bull, that bull never had the opportunity to grow into such an animal... They should have their hunting privileges revoked for life... PERIOD!! I don't care what state you're from, or what state you're hunting in.. The punishment should be the same... You break the law you get punished...

If their going to suspend the sentence, then why even impose one ?

 

[Nameless Range]

I think there are good reasons to allow the consequences of poaching of one animal, carry over to the supposed legal killings of others, especially the same species. Imagine these scenarios.

A hunter has a big bull tag for the Elkhorns and comes up on a bachelor group of 5 bulls at 500 yards. He doesn't have the ability to make a clean kill on any indvidual Elk, but what the hell. He flings all the lead he has at em, drops two, and wounds another. He walks up on his two dead bulls, tags the larger of the two, and takes his chances with some one reporting him. If the bastard has money, worst case scenario he still goes home with his "legal" bull, and if he comes back for the other one, he may lose it and pay a fine IF he gets caught. So what? Under current rule, a poacher keeps his bull.


Or more similar to the situation at hand, say a hunter goes out and kills a big bull first thing in the morning. He takes it home, strings it up (or buries it in hay), goes back to where he knows the elk are and shoots another by lunch, this one is bigger, so he puts the tag on it which isn't a problem because it's from the same day. He's still got daylight so he goes out for one more round and spots a bull that may or may not be bigger than the previous. He's already got a "legal" bull tagged, which he knows he gets to keep regardless. So he shoots it. When he walks up on it he finds that it isn't as much of a trophy as the second larger one he shot. So he leaves it. Because of situations like the one that occured last weekend in the Elkhorns, he has reason to believe that even if he gets caught, he still gets to keep the largest bull because that one has the tag on it.

It seems that a poacher could kill multiple critters and by default, one of them will be legal. We need to make the consequences for poaching any individual animal extend to the killing of any animals of that species for the entire season. Otherwise, poachers can work the system and go home with animals they sure as shit don't deserve.

 

[mtlion]

What WB said! The guy should have had the book thrown at him for the illegal bull, with the others charged as accessories, but you can't stretch things out and penalize a person when they didn't commit a violation because the old man had a license for the one he shot. If that bull wasn't tagged properly though, they should/would have cited him for that too.

It's quite clear they were engaged in party hunting, which is illegal in MT. They went out with the intention of shooting a bull regardless of who got the shot. I think that should have been taken into account with the bull the old guy shot. Even though there was a tag it was taken illegally, while party hunting. It seems a loophole has been opened for party hunting where if multiple animals are killed the one tagged stays with the hunters...oops I mean poachers.