Brothers Busted In Biggest Trophy Deer Poaching Case in Kansas

© By Othmar Vohringer

Marlin and James Butler, two Texas brothers, where sentenced to a total of 5 years in prison and fined 70,000 dollars after pleading guilty to poaching a total of 160 trophy whitetail deer bucks. The U.S. Wildlife officials say that this is the largest trophy deer poaching case in Kansas, if not in U.S., history. The prosecutors argued that the two brothers guided up to 60 clients to illegally kill about 160 deer. The brothers participated in jacklighting deer, shooting deer in the wrong management unit, trespassing and guiding hunters without hunting licenses.

The deer were transported over state lines, which means the brothers could also be successfully prosecuted on felonies for violating the Lacey Act. The act makes it illegal to knowingly transport or sell in interstate commerce any wildlife taken or possessed in violation of state law or regulation.

Steve Oberholtzer, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said. “This is the largest case in the history of wildlife law enforcement in Kansas. Trophy deer are an important resource for the state from both wildlife and economic standpoints.” The butlers sold deer hunts for between 2,500 and 5,000 dollars and guided their clients to some true trophy areas. The USFWS was able to confiscate more than 100 mounts from the brothers, with bucks ranging in the 120-inch class to over 200 inches.

You can read the full article here in the Wichita Eagle News.

###

This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Teenagers Arrested For Poaching On State Prison Property

© By Othmar Vohringer

Just when you think that you heard and seen it all along comes a news item that makes you just shake your head in utter disbelieve.

What surely must be the dumbest case of poaching in resent history comes from Florida. Three teenagers, Aaron Griffis, 18; Houston Fender, 19; and Shea Wilson, 18, of Lawtey, Fla., have been arrested on January 6 for illegally hunting deer on the Florida state prison property. The part that makes me shake my head is that the poachers choose the state prison property to commit their crime. It just doesn’t get more moronic then that.

PA Wildlife Conservation Officer Slain

© By Othmar Vohringer

Pennsylvania wildlife conservation officer David L. Grove, from Fairfield was killed in the line of duty.

I shudder in anger when I read stories like this one.

David L. Grove a PA wildlife conservation officer was killed in cold blood as he attempted to arrest a poacher. The felon was arrested 11 later. The DA seeks the death penalty. I hope the DA gets his wish. It’s bad enough that some people think they can go out in the woods and steal our game animals, but killing a game warden, or any person for that matter, is a different story entirely.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends and fellow wildlife conservation officers of David L. Grove.

Read full article here.

This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Tags: News, Pennsylvania, Wildlife Conservation Officer, Game Warden, Poacher

Minnesota Poacher Kills Trophy Buck

© By Othmar Vohringer

Poaching is not common but it does happen every year and each time I read about it, it makes me angry and upset. It’s no different with this story from Minnesota.

According to a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources press release officers recently seized a record-book deer rack and filed poaching charges against a Cannon Falls man.

The photo shows DNR Conservation Officer Tyler Quandt with the confiscated deer rack of the poached 8-point buck, with a 185 green score. Reinke, the poacher, has to pay $1,000 restitution and also faces other fines and court costs, and could have his hunting privileges revoked for three years if convicted. A trial date has not been set.

Read full story

Image courtesy: Minnesota DNR

This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Tags: Poacher, Minnesota, Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Trophy Buck

YouTube duck poachers plead guilty

© By Othmar Vohringer

That went fast! On Saturday morning I reported that the infamous YouThube duck poachers have been arrested a week after hunters unleashed a Canada wide manhunt.

Today the Global News reports that the three poachers pleaded guilty in court and have been sentenced. This must be the fasted I have ever seen somebody been sentenced. It caught be a bit of guard as I was fully prepared for the case would drag on for weeks if not months. The sentences are not what hunters and I expected. If a possible 300,000 dollar fine plus jail time the three poachers were only fined 16,000 dollars between them and no jail time.

Rowlands, the main shooter in the video, pleaded guilty to five charges and was fined $6,000. David and James Fraser each pleaded guilty to four charges and were fined $5,000. All three are unemployed and that might have figured in to the modest fines they were handed down. You can’t wring water out of a dry stone. Makes me wish they would bring back forced labor for prisoners, that way they could be put to work to pay the fines, damages and court costs, like it used to be in the good old days.

The three poachers had just recently moved from Toronto to a small community and that in itself may be punishment too. One of the poachers told the court that the community gives them a hard time. Silently I hope that the community, predominantly made up of hunters, forces these three to eventually move out of their town.

You can read the full article here.


I would like to thank all the bloggers that linked to my “duck poacher” articles and helped to spread the word. My thanks also go to everyone who posted their comments on this blog regarding the poachers. I would like to pick one special comment out and provide my answer here.

Monica wrote the following comment on “Duck Poachers Captured”

“I'm an animal advocate and am as happy as any of you that these idiot killers were apprehended. This is one of those instances where we can celebrate the common interests of hunters and animal welfare proponents. We all abhor this type of horrid slaughter. I find it disappointing that you've used this blog space to create more philosophical distance where we could, in fact, find agreement. It's when we come together that decency prevails. I believe tips came in across the board, from both hunters and non-hunters. We should celebrate that joint success.”

My answer:

I agree with you Monica. Animal rights or, animal welfare proponents, can agree on certain issues even work together on solving an issue. I have had many conversations with animal rights and in the majority these conversations had been very civil. Some animal rights respected my views after I explained to them what hunting is really all about. Others even changed their mind in favor of hunting and hunters while others agreed to disagree without hard feelings.

However, these are individual people. What I am aiming at are the animal rights organizations. Animal rights organizations have only one agenda and that is to make money of gullible people and abusing peoples emotions to that end. To achieve that, animal rights organizations will do whatever it takes to make hunters and hunting look bad in the public. This includes slander, criminalizing, dehumanizing, twisting facts or simply make them up as they go along. If anybody would talk about other minorities in this fashion they would be quite rightly sent to prison for hatemongering.

What I particularly object in this case is the fact that in all the broadcasting about the duck poachers, with very few exceptions, hunters were slowly phased out of been mentioned. To the end nowhere in the media has been made mention that in fact it was the hunting community that started the ball rolling and kept at it until the poachers were arrested. Nowhere in the media has it been mentioned that the hunting community offered over 1,000 dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the poachers, long before the government or the Humane Society of Canada offered rewards.

All we heard in the news, and still do, is that the Humane Society of Canada, an affiliate of the notorious Humane Society of the United States (SHUS), offered a reward for the capture of the poachers. The turn started the moment the organization released thousands of press releases and henceforth hunters and their efforts were not talked about anymore in public. This is a sick trick of the animal rights movement and sympathizing media to make the Humane Society of Canada look good in the public eye. A hunting friend of mine was declined and interview in favor of a member of the Humane Society of Canada and that despite the many hours and days my friend helped the media to gather information for the news.

With that in mind, I used my blog to make sure that the people on the street know that it was thanks to the Canadian hunters and their unparalleled combined effort that got the poachers arrested, and not the Humane Society of Canada, the police or even the government. The simple fact is. Had it not been for the hunters this atrocity would never have gotten the attention of the mainstream media, the Humane Society of Canada or the authorities. In fact if it were not for the hunters that poaching case, like so many others, would most likely never have have been investigated. It is a well established fact in the law enforcement that hunters are at the very forefront in fight against wildlife and environment violations. It was hunters that helped to fund "Report A Poacher" programs.

I also find it objectionable that the Humane Society of Canada only put up the award after the case was all over the media. This was clearly an attempt to gain public exposure given the thousands of press releases they sent out to the media. There are other animal abuse cases the Humane Society of Canada put rewards out but they never make the mainstream media. There is not a newspaper in Canada or TV station that does not mention the Humane Society of Canada, making them look instrumental in this case. Yet, as I write this, the Humane Society of Canada gets ready to unleash another emotional barrage of hunter bashing and hate mongering in the mainstream media in an effort to outlaw bear hunting in British Columbia. The intent is clear to see, people will say, “This is the organization that helped bring down the duck poachers - which are often portrayed in public as hunters as "hunters" – now they are saving the bears from the nasty hunters. Well done, lets write a check out.”

In light of this it seems to me very important that the people know that hunters are not the “monsters” the Humane Society of Canada and other animal rights organizations makes them out to be. It is important to me that people know that hunters do more for the protection of wildlife and conservation then all animal right organizations and the so called environmental organization combined. Here is an article that outlines what hunters do to ensure that future generations can enjoy the variety and abundance of wildlife we all take for granted today.

Like I said, I always have respected individual animal rights and their views but I never will respect an organization that shamelessly abuses people emotionally and engages in hate mongering for financial benefit.

-ov-

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors
Founding Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Duck Poachers Captured

© By Othmar Vohringer

Officials with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment confirm that three individuals have been arrested early Saturday morning in connection with the duck killing video posted on YouTube. I reported in my column on August 03 about the outrage of the Canadian hunting community and the hunter communities combined national effort to capture the poachers.

It took less than a week to catch these criminals. This must be one of the shortest times in apprehending poachers and it's in large part due to the Canadian hunters. Ones again hunters have shown that they are the true stewards of wildlife and habitat. Gary Harrison, head of special investigations for Saskatchewan's Ministry of Environment, said "It was more of a response than any other single event since the Turn In Poacher's (TIP) line began, which I believe was in 1989. Not only did we get calls here (in Saskatchewan), but Alberta Turn In Poacher's line as well received numerous calls."

Hunters were on the forefront in this manhunt from the moment the original video was posted on YouTube. After the original video had been taken down by the original creators a hunter from Alberta posted it back up again to make the video available to as many people as possible. Hunters created a special Facebook page “Get the Poachers” for the gathering and exchange of information on the poachers and to spread the word to as many people as possible.

The Alberta Outdoorsmen Forum created a special discussion section about the duck poachers and became the national "duck poacher action headquarters". Some members used their media connections to spread the word and ask for information about the identity of the poachers on TV and radio appearances. Other forum members familiar with video editing dissected the video frame-by-frame to find clues to identify the area where the crime happen and details of the firearms and vehicle that had been used and to obtain "mug shots" of the perpetrators. It was in any event an extraordinary effort on behalf of all ethical and law-abiding hunters of Canada that ultimately lead to the capture of the poachers this Saturday morning.

With this exemplary effort by hunters to bring the criminals to justice it seems almost like a joke that the Canadian Humane Society, an affiliate of the notorious Humane Society of the Untied States (HSUS), felt that they had to chime in too. Three days ago Michael O'Sullivan, the executive director of the Canadian Humane Society, announced that his group is offering $1,000 to anyone that helps catch the perpetrators. This was after a group of hunters already pledged a $ 1,000 reward for the capture of the poachers.

O'Sullivan also said that the Canadian Humane Society would ask the prosecutors to take away the privileges to hunt and own firearms from the criminals. Which is a mute statement clearly aimed at sounding important or concerned. The removal of hunting privileges and taking away the privileges to own firearms is already common court procedure in all poaching cases. Not that criminals ever where overly concerned about the loss of hunting and firearm ownership privileges. What bites more are the heavy fines, up to $ 15,000, and possible jail time that awaits the duck killers.

I fully expected, and predicted it in my first column about the duck poachers, that the animal rights fanatics would chime in and try to get some media mileage out from that case. I also predict that the animal right will use this case in the future in their bid to ridicule hunters and associate us with poachers. The animal rights must just hate that it had been hunters, the very people they decry as “cruel”, that showed passion and respect for wildlife and the law and by doing so are responsible for bringing down the duck poachers.

Following this story through the media I am pleased to say that the media behaved and not ones, as usually is the case, used the words “hunters” and “poachers” interchangeably. In fact the media made it very clear that these are poachers, not regular law abiding hunters. It is my hope that in future the media will do the same and not revert to the “mistake” of using the word “hunter” for poachers.

Well done my fellow hunters and conservationist from Alberta and Saskatchewan. This is another day to be a proud hunter.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors
Founding Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Tags: You Tube Duck Killing Video, Duck Poachers, Alberta, Saskatchewan, duck Poachers Arrested, Alberta Outdoorsmen Forum

Dumbest Poachers in 2007

© By Othmar Vohringer

The other day I run across an unbelievable story of how dumb people can be. The story encouraged me to search for the dumbest poachers and let me tell you I found lots of stories. Here is a small selection of what I think must be some of the most stupid poachers.

I am glad that these people have the IQ that God usually grants a gob of cheese, that way they got caught and could be prosecuted. For the non-hunting readers of this blog, poachers are not hunters. Poachers break the law hunters on the other hand obey the law as well self-imposed ethical and moral standards. Poachers are thieves. Hunters are conservationists.

The Centre Daily Times reports;

Stepbrothers charged with shooting cows on first day of deer hunt
State police say two Fayette County stepbrothers shot and killed four cows after dusk on the first day of deer rifle hunting season.
Police say 21-year-old Ronald Dwayne Regish III, of Dunbar, and 22-year-old Allen Kessler, of Normalville, fired 10 shots at the cows in Saltlick Township. A juvenile is also charged with firing a shot.
Police say the men used a spotlight to find the animals and told police they thought the animals were deer.
The men are charged with agricultural vandalism, criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief and cruelty to animals.
Police say spent rifle shells were found 50 to 200 yards from the cows.

Here is a video of three morons poaching steelhead salmon in a creek. These three stooges were so smart that they not only videotaped their criminal action (accepted evidence in the court) but also posted the video on YouTube for the all the world to see. It seems quite common now for crooks, not only poachers, to film their crimes and then post the video on a public forum such as YouTube. I think it is a good idea if crooks film the crimes they commit, it makes the job of the police colleting evidence so much easier.



Tags: Poachers, crooks, Stupid Crimminals

Bowhunting Author, Guide Indicted

A friend just emailed me the following article from The Outdoor Wire. I am shocked to learn about the accusations made against one of my favorite outdoor writers. First Jim Zumbo and now Dave Holt, it looks like this is turning out to become the year of outdoor writer scandales.

Here is the full article.

Bowhunting Author, Guide Indicted
The Outdoor Wire, June 14, 2007

He's best known in outdoor circles as a bowhunting expert, author and African guide, but David F. Holt, 60, is facing serious charges in conjunction with his long-past career as a Denver police officer.

Holt of Lakewood, Colorado, has been indicted on nine counts of forgery, two counts of theft and one count of making false statements in an indictment that charges he lied about his disability for 18 year, convincing doctors he suffered from serious psychological and physical problems. All the while Holt was bow hunting, leading guided trips to Africa and leading what prosecutors say was a normal life - subsidized by disability payments from the Denver Police Department.

Holt's attorney denies the charges, saying Holt "never intended to defraud anybody or any entity," further, Rick Kornfeld says, "We have 20 years of medical records that support the fact he was- and still is- disabled."

Holt, in Africa on a pre-scheduled trip, has made no statements at this point.

In 1968 Holt began a career as a Denver police officer. In 1986, he was supposedly injured while running a Denver Police Department obstacle course. Initial tests proved negative, but later tests say Holt may, in fact, have been suffering from a ruptured blood vessel just outside his brain. He also told doctors he was suffering severe psychological problems, including paranoia, short-term memory loss and an inability to control his emotions, the indictment states.

His girlfriend at the time said Holt walked with a shuffling gait, but the injury "resolved a couple of weeks after the accident, except when he went to a doctor," according to the indictment.

Holt was awarded temporary disability in 1986 and it was changed to full disability a year later.

In the meantime, investigators say, Holt was working on his first book, Balanced Bowhunting. In the following years, Holt traveled extensively, promoted the book, took hunting trips, wrote for magazines and appeared in promotional videos. In 1999, he formed "Dave Holt's Africa" to take bowhunters on overseas trips. He also published Balanced Bow-Hunting II in 2004 and was featured on the cover of a 2005 DVD "Africa With Stick and String."

In 2004, Denver hired private investigators to conduct surveillance on Holt. He was also required to attend an exam with a psychologist. In an exam the psychologist diagnosed Holt as "malingering" in essence, faking his illness, or as the indictment reads:

"According to Dr. Klein, Holt presented himself extremely depressed and downtrodden, and spoke in a soft voice. He sat far away in a corner, and presented himself as childlike and fearful. Holt claimed that he could not complete the patient form and that he was unable to read and write without a lot of help. Holt told Dr. Klein in the interview that his days consisted of watching TV, and reading and writing with a lot of assistance. He told Klein that he 'plays' with his bows and arrows and does target shooting outside. All of this seemed improbable to Klein, so she did some further investigation."

Denver moved to revoke his disability status and late last year his case was taken to a grand jury.

Now, Holt finds himself the poster-boy for abuse of workers compensation claims - and directly in the crosshairs of prosecutors.

Although Holt remains in Africa, his bond in Colorado has been set at one million dollars. His attorney says he doesn't know when Holt is scheduled to return.

Poachers and Cheaters

Here is a story that I read on the abc7news web and it just blew me away. Don’t you think a man of his caliber should know better? It angers me every time when I hear that hunting “celebrities” stoop so low in their ego masturbation that they have to resort to poaching or to cheating, like Mitch Rompolo (here and here) and a few others that made negative (speak hunting heritage damaging) headlines over the recent years. What really angers me is that these people often travel the seminar circuit where you can here them talking about hunter ethics and promoting a good image in public. Yet it is them that do real damage to our heritage for two reasons. First. Because they are “celebrities” the media latches on to them and often broadcasts the bad news all over the world. Point in case, I read this story on the abc7news website, not a hunting website. Second. There are unfortunately people –I do not call them hunters-, that are of the mindset that if so and so can bend the rules then I can do that too.

President Of Outdoor Guide School Guilty Of Poaching.

The former president a school that bills itself as the "premier outdoor guide school" has pleaded guilty to illegal possession of wildlife and hunting without a license.

Gary R. Jordan, 58, former president of the Colorado Outdoor Adventure Guide School, will pay $12,729 in fines, donate $2,000 to a Colorado Division of Wildlife anti-poaching program and could lose his hunting and fishing privileges, officials said.

He pleaded guilty Monday to charges stemming from a Sept. 17, 2006, poaching incident. DOW officials said he shot a six-point elk southwest of Cripple Creek and had his students help carry it out. Officials also said he used an employee's hunting license when he had the meat processed.

"We would think he would be aware of the laws," DOW spokesman Michael Seraphin said Friday. "He's the head of a guide school. He should be aware of what the rules and regulations are. That's what he's teaching other people."

Reached by phone Friday, Jordan said he was "very ashamed and remorseful," and that he resigned in January as president of the school he founded, and no longer plays any role at the school.

The school trains about 175 students a year.

Tags: abc7news, Outdoor Guide School, Poacher, Colorado, Mitch Rompola, Gary R. Jordan, Colorado Division of Wildlife, Elk, Cripple Creek, News