Hunter soured by elk tagging citation

Minnesota fishing guide Jim Latvala, 65, shot a six-point bull elk in Montana this season, but he didn’t get to take the meat home.

He was hunting with his brother and Montana resident Warren Latvala, 71, on a neighbor’s land by Highway 89 near Clyde Park.

Jim bagged a bull from a herd of 60 elk at first light on opening day.

“It was the first time we actually got to hunt together, and me taking this bull, we were elated, euphoric, in la-la land,” Jim Latvala said.

That feeling soured when a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden, followed by a TV show videographer, approached Latvala as he was gutting the bull and asked to see his nonresident elk tag. The warden told him he had a good chance of losing the bull because he hadn’t tagged it immediately.

Latvala said in Minnesota it’s not necessary to tag game until it’s going to be moved. He was also busy figuring out how to haul the elk out of the swamp where it had died and had to wade across the water to get to the bull.

“If you read the (Montana) statute it says you must immediately validate the tag,” said Joe Knarr, FWP’s warden sergeant.

A tag that isn’t notched right away could be pocketed and used again on a different animal.

Knarr said the time between shot and the tagging was roughly 20 to 25 minutes.

“There were violations,” Knarr said. “…The county attorney wanted to give the head back to the fella but not the meat based on the fact that a violation did occur.”

Warren Latvala, who had amiable contact with Scott before the citation, said the presence of the cameraman, who was filming for the TV show “Wardens,” pressured FWP warden Drew Scott to write the $135 citation and to confiscate the game. He’d like to see cameramen banned from riding with game wardens.

“Damn it, (FWP) should be out looking for poachers, not someone who took 21 minutes to fill out a tag,” he said.

Jim and Warren Latvala feel bolstered in their argument by the fact that the acting Park County attorney, Nels Swandal, dismissed the charge of failure to properly tag a game animal. In a letter addressed to Jim Latvala, Swandal listed as reasons for dropping the charge that Latvala had “no intent to evade or violate the law,” came from a state where the rules are different and had tagged the elk before the game warden approached.

Latvala was offered the bull’s head, but the meat had been given to a food bank.

“I don’t trophy hunt,” Latvala said. “I would never spend $2,000 to come back with the head of a bull.”

Latvala, a former Marine, has hunted for most of his life.

“I take hunting pretty seriously,” he said. “I’m not in it for the blood,” adding that the meat would have lasted him for two years.

“To have this fall apart makes me nauseated.”

The accusation that the citation was pompted by a TV cameraman is contestested by Mitch Petrie, president and executive producer of “Wardens.”

“Our videographers are trained to be a fly on the wall and stay out of the way,” Petrie said. “There’s no pressure to produce anything.”

Like his younger brother, Warren Latvala said the situation has left him bitter and sad.

“I’ve hunted since I was 8 years old and my dad bought me a .410 shotgun,” Warren said. “I’ve hunted continuously ever since then. Every year I’ve bought a deer and elk tag.”

Yet he didn’t hunt again after the incident this season, saying that now he’s always looking over his shoulder.

“It took the joy out of it for me,” he said. “I’ve got two unfilled tags, and I’ll never buy another one.”