Veteran guide gets a big fine for illegal deer hunting with clients-
Outfitter fined nearly $40,000 for illegal hunting. By The Denver Post.
Does anyone have much knowledge of the “Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact” mentioned in the article?
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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It’s a reciprocal system that keeps violators from just moving to a different state (as either a resident or non-resident) to keep breaking the law. Similar to a system that keeps revoked drivers from just going to a different state to get a new drivers license.
Ralph, SAP –
That is the gist of the compact. Each signatory state recognizes the violation and sentence of the wildlife crime. The loss of hunting priviledges in this case extends equally to each of the 35 compact states. The reciprocal recognition is automatic, as if the violation and sentence occurred in each of the compact states.
Mark, now that Wyoming has won its decision and will likely carry out their shoot on sight wolf plan when wolves are delisted unless they change their minds which I doubt they will do, but will Idaho follow their lead or will they stay with their regulated hunting season on wolves? I am hearing some talk from some saying that Idaho should take Wyoming’s stance on wolves and have a open season on them and shoot them on sight and classift them as varmints/predators. This is just talk at this point, but do you have any thing to add about this?
Jon –
Because of the sensitive legal status of the NRMR wolf management issues, all inquiries about Idaho wolf management are being handled by Mike Keckler, Communications Bureau Chief in Boise.
Thanks Mark.
This does make losing privileges a much stronger punishment.
Com’on down tony mayer and see what’s behind door #3
mark, if you’re still here. a bit off topic but have you ever seen an elk with a nearly white body and black head and neck.(of course legs below knees also dark
Jeff E – Not exactly, but I have seen a wide variation in degrees of darkness. This hunting season, I saw a cow darker than any I’ve seen yet. Uniformly dark brown. Even her rump patch was dark.
thanks Mark,
the bull I saw was a big spike and was visible to the naked eye at ~700yd where he was grazing on a side hill.
Jeff,
Interesting (and I did read your earlier post on of the stalk on him). Could you tell if the body size matched the spike antlers, or was it a larger, possibly older, animal that should have had something more?
Mark:
Thanks for the valuable information.
WM,
his antlers were about 18 to 20 in. fairly heavy. I figured him to be as big as a spike would get. Two years old?
The nature of outfitting causes problems. These hunters charge thousands of dollars for a week’s hunting. The pressure to provide a successful hunt for their client makes it easier for them to justify cutting corners or worse- break the law. BC in Canada is currently reviewing their Fair chase law after an outfitter chased a pack of wolves back onto a frozen lake with snowmobiles and ambushed the pack killing 2 of them. This outfitter had been previously convicted of killing a wolverine out of season.
http://animaltourism.com/news/2010/07/27/wolfhunt
Let me guess, all that outfitter got for killing a wolverine out of season was a small fine right? Who in their right mind would want to kill an amazing animal like a wolverine to begin with.
Wow. No surprises there.
You got it Jon. This guy Dennis Beattie from Wicked River Outfitters is also the President of the local Outfitter Guide chapter. I emailed him a few times- he was quite annoyed at all the nagative publicity! Barry Penner emailed me back to say they take” Fair Chase” very serious in Canada, although you would never know it by their rules! You can chase animals with high powered snowmobiles after baiting them, and all you have to do is jump off the snowmobilre before you shoot! Now what’s ” fair chase” about that?
Nothing at all.
I think the fines are appropriate but the loss of privileges should have been applied to all of them too.
Quite the fine to be slapped with. My question is why were these people from the Midwest hunting whitetailed deer in Colorado when they are at plague proportions in most of the Midwest?