Bill Would Punish Poachers Making A Killing Measure Increases Penalties For Blatant Cases Of Illegal Hunting

State Sen. John Andreason was going to his favorite elk-hunting area in November when he heard a radio report that shook him.

Four Oregon ranchers had shined spotlights on four trophy bull elk in the Owyhee Mountains, 60 miles south of Boise, and killed them as they stood mesmerized.

The ranchers, from Jordan Valley, had shot the elk without Idaho hunting licenses or tags that hunters have to buy and attach to carcasses. When they returned to Oregon, they placed elk tags from that state on the carcasses.

All the elk were mature bulls, and the largest, with seven-point antlers, would have scored high in the record books.

“To go out and maliciously kill those elk at night and then try to put Oregon tags on them, I mean, how blatant can you be?” Andreason, a lifelong hunter, asked.

Idaho, which has the third-highest rate of hunting participation, behind Wyoming and Montana, reported at least 150 cases of poaching last year, a rate that has enraged hunters who follow the law.

“We have to get rid of these wild-eyed thieves,” said William Goodnight, a member of the Idaho Wildlife Federation who is working with 230 groups to back new legislation. “These guys are threatening our sport.”

Andreason, a Republican who represents western Boise, plans to introduce a bill in the Legislature that would increase criminal and civil penalties for blatant poaching.

Now, even in the most egregious cases, poaching an elk is a misdemeanor, with a maximum $1,000 fine, a $500 civil penalty, six months in jail and the loss of hunting privileges for up to three years.

Some hunting groups said they would like to increase fines and give judges the power to impose a range of harsh penalties like revoking hunting privileges for life and confiscating weapons and pickup trucks.

In mid-October, two hunters killed an elk out of season, and they lost their hunting privileges two weeks later in court. In mid-November, the two went to the same area and slaughtered seven elk and a deer.

The men, Keith Hescock of Idaho Falls and Duane Christendon of Garland, Utah, and an accomplice, Dennis Christendon of Shelley, were fined about $5,400 each.

The incident underscores the need for harsher penalties, said Perry Johnson, regional conservation officer for Idaho Fish and Game, in Salmon. “We heard they were upset that we knew where their favorite hunting spot was,” Johnson said.

Illegal killing of elk, deer and moose in Idaho dates from the wholesale slaughter of buffalo in the late 1800s and the widespread bounty hunting of wolves and mountain lions in the early 1900s. The frontier attitude that there is no harm in killing a few extra animals, in or out of season, is pervasive among Idahoans and others from as far away as Pennsylvania.

So is “party hunting,” in which one hunter kills several animals for other members of a hunting party, for a spouse, grandparents or a friend.

One motivation for poachers is that a bull elk provides about 250 pounds of prime meat with very little fat, the equivalent of $1,000 worth of steaks and hamburger.

Idaho, like Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, has abundant populations of wild game. Elk number more than 110,000, deer herds exceed 300,000 animals, and moose number at least 7,000.

Officials say poaching harms a herd’s genetics, and it gives the sport of hunting a black eye. Animal rights groups have been successful in passing antihunting initiatives in Colorado, Oregon and California, at least in part, because of “slob hunting.”

Searching out groups of trophy bull elk reduces the number of mature males in a herd, which can harm the biological integrity and genetics of the herd, said Virgil Moore, a spokesman for Idaho Fish and Game. “These people are cherry-picking the best of the best,” Moore said.

In the Owyhee elk case, two men were sentenced to 60 nights in jail. All four paid fines of $5,200.

Andreason said he expected stiffer penalties for poaching to pass easily in the Legislature. The difficulty, he said, will be to agree on what constitutes a flagrant abuse. “We’re putting together the best possible blatant-infraction bill that we can,” he said.