The three face federal charges for leading hunts as part of an unlicensed outfitting business separate from their employer, federal prosecutors said.
Three big-game hunting guides in Idaho are facing federal charges that they illegally led mountain lion hunts in national forests and then shipped some of at least a dozen carcasses out of state, according to federal prosecutors.
All three people were licensed guides in the state and employed by a legal outfitter, but they also booked clients for mountain lion hunts separately from their employer starting in December 2021, the U.S. attorney’s office in Idaho said in a news release.
The three guides, Chad Michael Kulow, 44, Andrea May Major, 44, and LaVoy Linton Eborn, 47, led paying clients on hunts through Caribou-Targhee National Forest in southeast Idaho and the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming as part of an unlicensed business, the prosecutors said. Their groups killed 12 mountain lions from December 2021 to February 2022, prosecutors said.
It’s legal to hunt mountain lions in Idaho for most of the year with proper licensing. The three guides are accused of running an unlicensed outfitter in a side business and not following federal and state reporting requirements of the mountain lion kills.
At least three of the mountain lions killed during these hunts were shipped to Texas without being presented to Idaho Fish and Game, the state agency that oversees hunting, prosecutors said. Hunters in Idaho must report and present any mountain lions to the state agency within 10 days of their being killed, according to its hunting season manual. The three hunters also used false business information in their big game mortality reports, which is required by the state agency, prosecutors said.
The three were indicted in August on several charges, including conspiracy and violating the Lacey Act, a federal law that prohibits transporting animals that are illegally taken or possessed. All three were arrested last week and have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Lawyers representing the three defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
The most serious charges the three face carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Nicholas Arrivo, the managing attorney for animal protection law at the Humane Society of the United States, said that the Lacey Act was “vigorously” enforced and has been around since 1900. The law, among the oldest related to wildlife in the country, is meant to prevent illegal animal trafficking, he said.
Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, said that while most hunters in her state hunted for food, she had noticed that wildlife was increasingly “valued in a very different way.”
“This is totally trophy hunting,” she said. “No one is out there, like, eating mountain lion.”
She said that trophy hunting — the hunting of animals to display their bodies rather than for food — had increased in recent years.
But Ms. Combs added that she did not often hear about outfitters or licensed guides leading illegal hunts.
“Mostly,” she said, “outfitters and guides have licenses and want to keep them.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
