MIXED BAG
Pendleton Man Arrested For Multiple Alleged Poachings
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ast month, Oregon wildlife troopers arrested an 18-year-old Pendletonarea man for allegedly poaching multiple big bucks and cow elk. Joseph Reide St. Pierre was booked into Umatilla County Jail on 21 misdemeanor charges following an investigation that began last September after troopers received a tip he’d allegedly been killing deer and elk on public and private lands. He poached three “large” whitetails, one “large” muley and two antlerless elk, according to state troopers. St. Pierre was arraigned on charges that included four counts of unlawfully killing a buck during a closed season, three counts of hunting on another’s cultivated lands, and two counts each of waste, shooting across a public road and unlawfully killing antlerless elk.
By Andy Walgamott
Man Sentenced For Shooting Trumpeters
Oregon isn’t known for having a whole lot of whitetails, but a Pendleton-area man is alleged to have shot three “large” bucks in recent years. (OSP) He was also charged with two counts of aiding in the poaching of bucks. Troopers were asking anyone with more information on the case to call the Turn-In-Poachers line (800-452-7888), or Trooper Tom Juzeler or Senior Trooper Ryan Sharp (541-278-4090).
It’s not often crab gear is hauled into court (right background), but that was the case in Grays Harbor County Superior Court when WDFW Fish and Wildlife Officer Ed Welter (left) introduced them as evidence during the trial of commercial skipper Larrin Breitsprecher in early December. According to WDFW, Breitsprecher was fined $5,000 after a jury found him guilty of possessing the stolen pots. In a rambling email, Breitsprecher claimed WDFW is trying to silence him and blamed a relative for his troubles. (WDFW)
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lways identify your target before you shoot. That was the lesson a Cottage Grove, Oregon, hunter ultimately learned after being sentenced for shooting two trumpeter swans at Summer Lake Wildlife Area in 2016. Michael J. Abbott was ordered to pay $4,750 – which will go towards buying more swans from a Wyoming breeder – by a Lake County Circuit Court judge earlier this winter, and also lost his hunting privileges for three years, according to the Bend Bulletin. The paper reported Abbott, 35, claimed that he thought he was shooting at a snow goose at “close range” but he actually hit two swans. The birds “were considered important pieces of the state’s trumpeter swan reintroduction program.” According to the story, waterfowlers insisted Abbott turn himself in, so he took one swan to authorities. The other was later recovered by state troopers and put into rehabilitation for a broken wing but died a year ago this month. One trumpeter’s frozen carcass was introduced during Abbott’s one-day trial last September to “prove the shot was fired from farther way” than he claimed, the paper reported.
JACKASS OF THE MONTH
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f you’re going to poach a deer, putting it on your SUV’s roof for the drive home in broad daylight might be a bad idea, but that’s what a Texas man did after recently killing an out-of-season muley. After Lone Star State game wardens got a text from an alert driver, they ran the man’s license plate, called him on his cell
and asked if he was in possession of a deer, according to radio station News Talk 1290’s report. He said yes and that it was a whitetail – the season for which was open – but couldn’t give an exact location for where he killed it, and when asked to text a pic of the buck to the officer for identification, he confessed to poaching the mule deer.
nwsportsmanmag.com | FEBRUARY 2018
Northwest Sportsman 57