Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question: appropriate punishment for poaching an elk???

The facts are set forth below. Please give your opinions on appropriate punishment (yes, I am the azzhat prosecutor in the case ):

Hunter draws a coveted Northern California elk archery tag. Arrows a 360 inch 6 x 6 bull, but the bull gets away. Hunter can't find the bull till days later, and the bull is dead, and the meat spoiled. So far, completely legal kill. When he finds the dead bull hunter cuts off the horns but does not apply his tag, as the law requires. At that point (once he is in possession of the animal and horns and does not tag it), under Kalifornia law, its an illegal possession. Hunter never tags the rack. Hunter leaves the rotten carcass in the field
(no law violation there----meat is rotten through no fault of his own.)

Hunter then goes hunting weeks later in another area and deliberately arrows a 5 x 4 (rag horn) for meat. Harvests the elk and processes a freezer full of elk meat. Bragging on the internet and to friend and inconsistency between the rack he claimed to tag and the one he showed friend results in an investigation and a full confession. (A friend of the hunter who saw the inconsistencies in story and obvious poaching is pissed and "outs" the poacher to law enforcement.)

Hunter is a fanatical big game archery hunter (good for him) and loves to hunt as often as he can. Hunting is his life. No prior record of poaching (or so he says---can't prove otherwise.). In Kalifornia, this poaching of the rag horn elk and failure to tag the 6 x 6 trophy) is a misdemeanor only. Penalty fine is about $1000.00 but could be as high as $10k. He prolly won't do jail (we could certainly ask for it).

Main issue is how long should his hunting privileges be suspended? What say you guys? I think 3 years. What say you? Suspension of privileges is the big hit for this guy. Also, there is restitution for the value of the elk. What's the rag horn worth? He'll be on probation for 3 years and will forfeit his $1600.00 bow (he has many other bows).

Your thoughts are appreciated. Want to be fair, but appropriately punitive. IMHO, poaching is rampant and tough to detect. Don't want to over or under punish.

Your honest thoughts are appreciated.

Jordan

No hunting 3 years, no bow hunting for elk for life.

No hunting for three. Then he can hunt any way, legally. $2000 for the raghorn.

I'll give $400 for his bow and arrows.

Given these particular circumstances, 300LH probably has it about right. If it were out and out unlicensed purposeful poaching, it should be a hefty fine and zero hunting permitted in the future.

Sorry, but no can do.

Three years suspension of hunting privileges is good. Forfeiture of bow is also good. Throw in some community service in the conservation area. He's going to have some time on his hands, he might as well put it to good use. Who knows he might learn something from this experience.

No excuse for that. A 5 minute phone call to an enforcement officer when he found his "lost" elk would have put him in a better place. Instead you have two dead elk and a guy bragging about his hunting prowess.

What would you (the prosecution) have done if he had cleanly taken a first elk and put it in his freezer and then went out and took another? I consider this the same situation.

I vote for 3 years suspension, seize and donate the meat, take his bow, the antlers, max state fines for each animal taken, and potentially his truck if he used it to haul out the 2nd elk.

Harsh absolutely, but he knew what did was ethically wrong and probably illegal from the time he didn't tag the fist set of antlers.

^^^^ This ^^^

10 years suspension. $5000 fine.

I've often wondered if the fine should match the person's earnings. For example, if this guy makes $250K a year then $5K is nothing but for a person making minimum wage they may never be able to pay it off.

Butt rape.

I would go this route as well and throw in 250 hours of community service as well. I might threaten him with the truck but I wouldn't take, save that for the "professional poachers".

As for being the azzhatt prosecutor, someone has to do it, just make sure you do it with a conscience.

The addition of community service in lieu of the truck seizure is a good compromise. There are definitely worse offenders out there...

This

well, in the old days, poaching the King's deer was punishable by death.

I hate poachers worse than you can imagine, but what would have happened if someone else had stumbled across the first dead elk. Could he/she have taken the antlers? Would they need a tag? Can you pick up sheds without a tag? The meat is wasted, but does the set of antlers also have to be wasted?

The man made an effort to recover the bull but failed. If he did not break the law of wanton waste by not recovering and using the meat and was legally able to shoot another bull, would not the same thing also apply to the antlers? If people wandering out in the woods can pick up antlers or other body parts with out having a tag, why does he need to tag a set of antlers from a rotten bull?

To me, this is the key to the whole situation. Do all antlers recovered from the field, even from animals you did not kill but found dead and rotten, need to be tagged?

Perhaps I am not seeing the whole picture, but I don't see why the person needed to tag the first set of antlers if a different person could recover the set from a rotten carcase without a tag unless the law requires that all antlers, from whatever source, have a tag.

give him a warning and ask him to make a $1000 dollar charitable contribution and provide a receipt. No loss of privileges .

Hence the need for a 5 minute phone call to fish and game. Best I could decipher is that one could take those antlers from that animal legally without a tag in the state of California but the suspect person in this case is the one that killed the elk in the first place. That complicates things enough to warrant a phone call IMO.

Whatever the Cal Fish and Game determine. I would expect they have set criteria for such shenanigans and I have not known any F&G department to go light on a criminal.

What are the odds, a bow hunter that can't find his kill.

Met lots that have the attitude of 'I expect to lose some'

I certainly agree that a phone call to the G&F would have been wise. If the OP is correct about the law, they would have told him to leave the antlers in the woods or tag them.

I still wonder whether a different person finding the rotten elk could take the antlers without a tag. The OP seems to suggest that they could not. What about sheds?