# Montana is serious about wildlife violations!!



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

*Montana wildlife officials are letting poachers know: You mess around in our backyard, we'll mess around in yours - no matter how much money you have*

By PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian

The face of poaching is changing in Montana.

There was a day when poachers were simply folks trying to put meat on their family's table. They sneaked out in the dead of night and shot the first unlucky deer or elk whose eyes lit up in the headlights.

Today's poachers might fly in on a private jet and take to the hills dressed in the finest of hunting garb for a chance to decorate their boardrooms with a wildlife trophy from Montana. Often as not, today's poaching is all about money - big money.

"For the right guy focused on getting a certain animal, it simply doesn't matter what it takes," said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Law Enforcement Chief Jim Kropp. "He'll pay whatever he has to, do whatever he has to, to get that trophy. And there's plenty of people willing to help for a price."

"It's doesn't matter if the season is open or closed, if it's night or day or on public or private lands," said Kropp. "They're serious in the terms of the volume of critters they're willing to take from legitimate sportsmen in this state."

"It's all about big egos and big antlers," he said.

Montana is hitting back hard at some of the worst offenders - the message to poachers is simple.

"If you come to play in our backyard and steal our biggest and best, we'll come play in yours," said Kropp. "We don't care if you're a CEO or a company president. We're going to come into your office, sit down and make you talk with us."

"People are going to prison for wildlife violations," said Kropp. "We're serious in terms of the penalties that are being handed out. Montana is one of the few states where a wildlife penalty can be a ticket to prison."

In the last four or five years, Kropp said the state has sent about a half-dozen people off to prison. And there are others in the bull's-eye - "they just don't know it yet."

Some of the larger recent poaching cases include:

John Daniel McDonald, 38, of Gardiner, allowed out-of-state residents to hunt big game on his property from 1999 to 2004. He pleaded guilty in October to two felony counts of violating the Lacey Act, which regulates the interstate sale, purchase and transportation of wildlife. He was sentenced to a year in federal prison and a $50,000 fine.

Two Santa Rosa, Calif., businessmen, Frank Earl Schulze and Jeffrey Stuart Young, also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of violating the Lacey Act as part of the McDonald case. Each were ordered to pay $2,500 in fines. In addition, Schulze paid another $8,000 in restitution for the elk he killed. Young was ordered to pay $16,300 for the two elk and mule deer he killed.

Kelly Frank, the man initially charged in an alleged plot to kidnap talk show host David Letterman's son, was sentenced to five years in prison for killing what probably would have been the state record mule deer buck. Frank pled guilty to two wildlife felonies in a plea bargain agreement.

"The bottom line is through plea bargaining all the kidnapping charges were dropped," said Kropp. "He's in prison now mainly due to the wildlife felonies."

Dean Ruth, 37, received a 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended following a case that began in earnest with a search of Ruth's Seeley Lake home in 2002.

Wardens found the walls of the Ruth trailer home covered with antler mounts, a rifle with a homemade silencer and piles of trophy kill photographs. The investigation turned up more than 100 trophy-quality deer, elk, moose, bear, antelope and other animals.

Ruth and his wife, Renita, were ordered to pay a combined restitution of $19,300 by District Judge John Henson for 41 illegally killed game animals.

At the sentencing hearing, Henson told Ruth: "You're not even a slob hunter. You're simply a killer of wildlife."

In this day and age when Montana game wardens are already stretched thin, high-visibility cases like the Ruths' can be a drain.

Jeff Darrah, FWP's Region 2 warden captain in Missoula, said by the time it was completed, the Ruth case cost his department a full-time employee of personal time, plus another $10,000 in operations.

"We had something like $50,000-plus invested into it by the time it was done," said Darrah. "To invest a full FTE cripples me in every other aspect of things we do."

That list of things Montana wardens are required to do continues to grow, but their numbers don't. Region 2, headquartered in Missoula, has the same number of wardens it did in 1972. Back then, the warden's law book was a little inch-thick book. Now it's 4-inches thick.

"We have more people, more laws and we're trying to address it all with the same number of people," he said. "We're taking care of those calls about bears on the back deck and deer in people's yards at the same time we're trying to address some of these major wildlife cases."

Darrah's hoping that the Legislature will see fit to add a few more special investigators around the state. Two positions were created in 2005. Their job is to go after the major wildlife cases occurring in their respective regions.

"They're already absolutely swamped," said Kropp. "Our goal is to eventually have one position in each of the administrative regions around the state."

FWP has also received some help from the attorney general's office, where a full-time prosecutor has been hired to address major wildlife violations.

And the state is looking at a number of other ways to make it harder to break the law.

For instance, the automated licensing the state instituted in 2002 has had its problems.

FWP officials documented a 60 percent increase in requests for duplicate licenses since the automated program came on line in 2002. Hunters who honestly lose their license can request a duplicate license for $5.

"We think there has been a lot of abuse with that both from residents and nonresidents," said Kropp.

FWP will ask the Legislature for the authority to both make it more difficult for people to obtain a duplicate license and an increase in penalties for those who abuse the system.

"We don't want to penalize the honest individual out there," he said. "There are people who legitimately lose their license."

Another huge problem facing the department is the proliferation of nonresidents buying resident tags. Kropp said it's been as easy as setting up a post office box or obtaining a Montana driver's license.

"In order for people to legally qualify as a Montana resident, they have to file taxes as a Montana resident," he said.

FWP is in the process of meshing their records with the Montana Department of Revenue to help slow down that abuse.

"It's a win/win for both our departments," Kropp said. "It will clearly help us find those illegally obtaining a license and the Montana Department of Revenue will probably find a few Montana residents who aren't paying their taxes as well."

Montana sportsmen are also doing their share in cutting down on crime.

Every year the state receives upwards of 1,400 calls to the FWP TIPMONT line.

"The majority of those provide us with some very good information," said Kropp. "Most people are appalled when they hear the stories. They're willing to help us in any way they can."

"Poaching has definitely changed in the last 50 years," said Darrah. "It's become more of a commercial enterprise. People are in it for the money."

It's the average Montana sportsman who loses in the end.

"I think the average hunter would like to be able to say that they've killed one nice six-point bull before they hang it up," said Darrah. "I know that I would."

"That's what is so frustrating," he said. "Some of these guys have killed 30 or 40 bulls in that size range and they're not even that old. They are stealing from the rest of us."


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## Draker16 (Nov 23, 2004)

Good for them, but they, along with North Dakota need to hire more game wradens to really be effective.


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