Idaho grizzly bear killing reveals insights into investigation of wildlife crimes
BILLINGS – Every year, dozens of investigations are conducted into the deaths of grizzly bears across the 34,000 square miles of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an area that includes portions of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.
Often, the results of the investigations go unreported, or the case is not solved. But in 2022, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game cracked an appalling case involving the killing of a mother grizzly, which was shot 12 times, and whose 6- to 8-week-old cub subsequently died due to the loss of its mother.
Barry Cummings, an Idaho Fish and Game regional conservation officer, recalled the investigation at the 16th Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem at Big Sky Resort on Sept. 4. His talk gave insights into how such investigations are conducted and resolved in court.
Shot 12 times
The search for grizzly bear No. 899 was initiated after the sow’s collar emitted a mortality signal on March 24, 2021. It would be more than two weeks before the female bear was located partially submerged in the Little Warm River, along Idaho’s eastern border and not far from Yellowstone National Park. It took most of the day for two IDFG officers to retrieve the bear so a necropsy could be conducted that revealed the bear had been shot 12 times.
At a rim above the river, 54 shell casings from a 5.7x28 millimeter handgun were found.
“Often we have very little to go on,” Cummings said. “Most wildlife is taken in remote areas.”
So investigators started with a search of social media sites and sought fingerprints from the shell casings. A $40,000 reward for information was advertised.
Geofence
“One of the things that really helped and broke open this investigation was the application for a Google geofence warrant,” Cummings said.
The geofence warrant is a request to a service provider, like Google, for cellphone location information. It’s data cellphone service providers are constantly collecting as a phone’s signal pings off towers.
“There’s a lot of controversy around geofence warrants,” Cummings said. “In fact, Google has stopped collecting a lot of that data because of that controversy and concern over privacy.”
Using the grizzly’s collar data, along with information from a camera placed at the sow’s den site, Idaho Fish and Game investigators could narrow down the time of the bear’s shooting. With that information, the investigators sought a warrant for geofence information.
The data provided to investigators does not have a name attached to it. The investigators must then apply for another warrant to have the service provider give the name and information from the devices.
With that information, the Idaho Fish and Game investigator began looking at the suspect’s social media accounts. One of the suspect’s postings showed a woman gardening with a caption that said: “Remember, when you bury a body, cover it with endangered plants so it is illegal to dig up. Follow me for more gardening tips.”
Charged
It took about 10 months to build the case file before investigators obtained a search warrant for the residence of Jared Baum, the prime suspect, and his father, Rex Baum, both of Ashton, Idaho. Both men eventually confessed to the crimes.
“The story was they were out and saw a bear,” Cummings said. “He thought it was a black bear, so he shot at it.”
The black bear season wasn’t open, and it’s illegal to shoot grizzly bears – except in cases of self-defense – which are protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Both men were charged with felonies in state court.
As part of a plea deal, Jared Baum pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced to 30 consecutive days in the Fremont County jail, three years of probation, two years fixed, and three years indeterminate sentence suspended, $2,500 in fines plus court costs, $10,000 in civil penalties, and a lifetime hunting revocation, according to an Idaho Fish and Game news release.
Rex Baum pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 180 days in jail, 177 suspended, three days to serve in the Fremont County jail, $1,000 in fines plus court costs, $400 civil penalty and a 10-year hunting revocation.
Idaho is also a member of the Interstate Wildlife Violators Compact. Therefore, Jared Baum’s hunting license was revoked for life, and Rex Baum’s hunting license was revoked for 10 years in all 48 states participating in the compact.
The sentencing of wildlife crimes is at the discretion of the prosecutor and judge, Cummings noted. Since not all judges or prosecutors may hunt, or see wildlife crimes as serious as other illegal acts, it’s important for the investigators to build a relationship with court officers, he said.
“Oftentimes we get prosecutors or judges, they don’t hunt, they don’t fish, they don’t recreate in the out of doors, and I think often those are the biggest, some of the biggest hurdles that we have to work through … explaining why it’s important,” Cummings said.
That will vary from county to county.
“In fact, I’ve had some prosecutors say to me that they will never give someone a lifetime hunting revocation because they like the incentive of … if you behave, if you don’t violate in 10 years, come back and petition the court to get your privileges back,” Cummings said. “That may promote better behavior than someone who says, ‘I have nothing to lose.’ ”
Hunting funds investigations
Since November 2020, Cummings said Idaho has had about 10 grizzly bears killed by humans. Of those, five were defense-of-life cases that were investigated to make sure they were legitimate. The rest were taken unlawfully, including a hunter who thought he had shot a black bear and turned himself in.
When asked about the motivation behind such thrill kills of wildlife, Cummings said he was told early in his career to not dwell on that too much.
“There are lots of motivations, and sometimes it’s opportunity,” he said. “Sometimes it’s individuals that just simply have to possess. Sometimes it’s individuals that think the law doesn’t apply to them. There are lots and lots and lots of reasons why people do the things that they do.”
If hunting of grizzly bears is allowed, as the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have proposed as part of removing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzlies from Endangered Species Act protection, Cummings said such killings are likely to continue. Yet he also noted that it is license dollars paid by hunters that funds state agencies like Idaho Fish and Game who help investigate such incidents as grizzly bear No. 899’s killing.
“Regulated hunting paid for the investigation and closure of this case,” he said. “The 14 officers in my region are funded from fishing, hunting and trapping dollars. So, it’s not a species that we currently hunt in Idaho, but it still gets our time and commitment to catching who did it.”