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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Field reports: Rich hunter charged with illegally killing celebrity elk

An elk locals knew as Bullwinkle rests in a pasture in Kittitas County. The elk was killed by a shooter in December 2015. (Courtesy)

HUNTNG – The most photographed bull elk in Kittitas County lived its life mostly in the safety of private pasture land near Ellensburg where it was illegally killed by a trophy hunter in December.

The hunter, who’s paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for special permits to hunt big game in recent years, had won the state lottery for a special bull elk tag valid in a series of East Side game units. However, he’s charged with shooting the bull in Unit 334, which is closed to hunting branch-antlered bulls.

Living in the protection of that unit allowed the bull to live nearly 10 years and grow 8-by-8 point antlers. Locals called it Bullwinkle.

“He was a big-time local celebrity,” Brad Duncan said. “You could get right up close to him. He lived in people’s yards. He would jump the fence and lay 10 feet from people’s homes.”

Tod Reichert, 76, of Salkum, Washington, is charged with second-degree unlawful hunting of big game, a gross misdemeanor. He is scheduled for a pretrial hearing in Lower Kittitas District Court on May 31.

In 2015 alone, he put more than $60,000 into WDFW coffers. In addition to his $50,000 auction East Side elk tag, he spent more than $12,000 on big-game permit raffle tickets, one of which won the tag he used on Bullwinkle.

Washington Fish and Wildlife officers reported that Reichert shot the elk illegally in Unit 334. Then he and a small group of Ellensburg residents who had helped him locate the bull loaded it into a pickup and drove to field dress the bull on a private field in a unit open to branch-antlered bulls.

Four times since 2007, Reichert has purchased the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s special East Side elk auction tag, paying $47,000 (twice), $50,000 and, for the yet-unused 2016 tag, $75,000.

Reichert has also purchased auction tags and harvested trophy-book elk in other states. His 2008 New Mexico elk is the Safari Club International world record for a typical Rocky Mountain elk.

In 2007, he bought the state’s East Side elk auction tag and, that December, killed a bull elk in the Blue Mountains. But the day before the hunt, his Oregon-based guide, Jon Wick, used a helicopter to spot the elk – illegal in Washington – and the hunt took place outside the area in which the U.S. Forest Service had authorized Wick to operate.

A federal grand jury indicted Reichert and his guide, Jon Wick, on felony and misdemeanor offenses related a 2007 auction bull hunt in the Blue Mountains.

Richland sportsman volunteer of year

WILDLIFE – A fondness for wood ducks has earned a member of the Richland Rod & Gun the distinction as Volunteer of the Year named by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Dale Schielke, a retired engineer, has worked on many projects with the Richland club over more than three decades, but his wood duck nesting box project is a hit with local waterfowl and a global audience.

Schielke and club members have fixed web cams on five nest boxes allowing the public to learn about the handsome waterfowl and share the delight of seeing the ducklings take their first big leap from the nest to the ground. See links to the web cams on Rich Landers’ Outdoors Blog, spokesman.com/blogs/outdoors.

Organization of the year honors went to 15 independent chapters of Puget Sound Anglers for volunteering at hatcheries, organizing kids fishing events and educating anglers on release techniques to protect wild salmon, steelhead and rockfish.

Citizen volunteers around the state logged nearly 60,000 hours on WDFW projects in 2015, officials said.