Camera phone helps nab poaching suspect

POCATELLO, Idaho – A Pocatello man has been cited for killing a pregnant mule deer out of season after another man used his cell phone to take photos and then reported the incident to authorities.

Blake March, 26, of Pocatello, is scheduled to be arraigned April 11 in 6th District Court. He was cited Wednesday.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials allege that March illegally shot a pregnant mule deer on Sunday that was feeding south of Pocatello in a field owned by Larry Bull.

Kyle Hall, 22, was driving his parents home for Easter dinner when he saw a truck slowly moving along the road with its passenger door open.

Hall said he looked in the field and saw a man kneeling on the other side of a fence pointing a gun toward a deer.

“I could see the deer,” Hall told the Idaho State Journal. “Its head was still up at that point. It hadn’t completely dropped.”

Hall confronted the driver.

“I kept asking them what they were doing, and he said, ‘Nothing.’ And I said, ‘No, you shot that deer,’ ” Hall said.

Hall used his cell phone to photograph the three men and the truck’s license plate. “(The alleged shooter) got his gun from where he laid it down, and I got a picture of him stepping through the fence with his gun in hand,” Hall said.

An hour later, Hall met with Steve Anderson, a conservation officer with Fish and Game. Hall said they found shell casings and a blood trail and then the doe about 50 yards from where it was likely shot.