Men Again Caught Poaching Deer, Elk Pair And Friend Fined $16,257, Stripped Of Hunting Rights

A month after being stripped of their hunting privileges for poaching, two men were arrested in the same area of central Idaho for illegally killing seven elk and one deer.

Keith Hescock of Idaho Falls and Duane Christendon of Garland, Utah, were sentenced on Tuesday for poaching in the Myers Cove area of Lemhi County.

Magistrate Fred Snook sentenced Hescock, Christendon and Dennis Christendon of Shelley, who joined them for the November shooting spree, to pay $16,257 for the animals they took.

The fine, split three ways, comes to $5,419 per person.

The three also were stripped of their hunting, fishing and trapping privileges for six years. A 90-day jail sentence was suspended pending any further violations in the next six years.

“I’m happy about the sentence,” said Tony Latham, a senior Idaho Department of Fish and Game conservation officer in North Fork. “But it makes me wonder if they’re not going to do it again in the next few years just because they didn’t learn the first time.”

According to a Fish and Game affidavit, game wardens patrolling the area spotted Hescock and he ran to his van, jumped in and fled.

When the officers lost sight of Hescock’s van, they radioed for backup and went to his hunting camp, where they interviewed Dennis Christendon. He told them Hescock had at least three poached animals in his van.

Four more wardens and a sheriff’s deputy showed up about two hours later and helped with the investigation. While some of the conservation officers interviewed the hunters, others backtracked four-wheeler and human tracks from the camp to the kill scene.

They found parts of five elk and at least one deer, according to the affidavit. More body parts were found later.

Latham said he was concerned about what the poaching incident meant for the future.

“These three guys had their kids with them and, in October, one of their kids was with them,” he said. “It’s no wonder that poaching is a continuous problem from one generation to the next.”