Idaho Family Sentenced to Prison in Mountain Lion Cover-Up Case 🧑‍⚖️

ven•a•tic: fond of or living by hunting

NORTH AMERICA’S MOST-READ OUTDOOR NEWSLETTER

Welcome back from what we all hope was a long, restful weekend.

As we continue to slowly but surely inch back towards the weekend, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get into what this beautiful Tuesday has to offer.

Here's what's worth reading about so far this week:

DISMANTLING THE FAMILY BIZ
ST. MARIES FAMILY SENTENCED TO PRISON IN MOUNTAIN LION COVER-UP CASE

It was back in April when we first wrote about Eddy, Angela, and Daniel Dills of St. Maries, Idaho. Back then, the case still looked like a family-sized poaching operation that included four mountain lions and eight bobcats, license-less dogs, a paper trail in Angela’s name, and a Moscow buyer on the back end for about $1,700 in hides and carcasses. The question we asked back then, and one that still hangs over the file is: at what point does illegal hunting stop being a violation and start looking like a system?

A Kootenai County jury answered that question in June, and not the way prosecutors wanted.

After a week of trial and roughly ten hours of deliberation, jurors convicted all three on felony conspiracy to conceal evidence, while acquitting them of conspiracy to unlawfully kill wildlife and conspiracy to sell unlawfully taken wildlife. In the end, the “business,” as charged, did not stick. The dump did.

And that dump is the spine of what the state actually was able to prove.…

🤦 $220 Father’s Day Blind Vanishes During Wyoming Archery Hunt. Anxious to use a new hunting blind he received as a Father’s Day gift back in June, Nic Buxman of Afton set it up next to a waterhole in hopes of spotting some speed goats. After sitting it with no luck, him and his brother left it staked and tied to a rock and decided to venture out on a spot-and-stalk. After getting skunked on their walk-about, they decided to return to the blind for an evening sit. But when they arrived where they had left the blind, they found the stakes had been pulled, the line taken off the rock and the new blind nowhere to be found.

Buxman believes the thieves were a younger man and a woman in a newer black four-door Chevy with a temporary Wyoming tag that he’d seen near camp; other hunters later spotted the same truck, and a tire-shop report called the occupants “sketchy.” He reported it to a Game and Fish warden while reiterating that it wasn’t about the money or the cost of the blind, stating that he would have let someone sit the blind if they’d asked. As a hunter education instructor himself, he’s always taught respect and good sportsmanship while afield — two things that were obviously never taught to whoever lifted this blind in broad daylight.

In the end, he’s determined not to let this incident sour his outlook on this year’s season and plans to be back out there in a few weeks with his whole family in tow.

“I try to teach my students to be respectful of others,” he said. “Those people (who took the blind) apparently didn’t get the memo."

🐕‍🦺 SC Lawmakers Block DNR Push to Revisit Dog-Deer Hunting Rules. After the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources held three public meetings on how dog-deer hunting is affecting landowners and moved to form a stakeholder group, South Carolina lawmakers have since shut that process down by passing a resolution backing the status quo: dog hunting stays legal with no changes in Game Zones 3 and 4.

Rep. Robby Robbins (R-Dorchester) and Sen. Russell Ott (D-Calhoun) said the problem is enforcement of existing rules, not the rules themselves - with Ott adding he doesn’t want new regulations to make it harder for people to hunt.

Unfortunately, neither lawmaker moved money or extra wardens to match that enforcement talk. On the ground, the reality is that packs still get turned loose on roads or sliver parcels that border land the hunters don’t have permission to use. Retrieve crews and standers line the roads while dogs run private property, allegedly by the dozen. The warden assigned to that county is often hours away on another call and by the time anyone arrives, the dogs have already gone through and the hunters on the shoulder say they don’t know whose dogs they are. Fines, when they land, run about the cost of a day’s hunt and some property owners say they are left watching it happen, season after season, with no new tools from the Statehouse and no new boots on the ground from the DNR.

💰 Virginia Raises Hunting and Fishing Fees for First Time Since 2012. Virginia’s Board of Wildlife Resources approved the first hunting, fishing, and trapping license increase in 14 years, plus the first boating-fee bump since 2019. Most licenses, boat registration, and titling fees are set to rise $5 starting on Oct. 1st. Youth, disabled-veteran, apprentice, and disabled-participant licenses are unchanged, while camping on state lands, including wildlife management areas, gets a new $10 authorization fee.

The department says the money will further fund wildlife and land management, enforcement, public safety training, and park upkeep. The department also cited inflation, construction costs, rising demand for public access and wildlife-conflict response, along with a state-mandated annual salary increase that DWR has had to absorb without extra general-fund money.

🦬 Buffalo crossing. Watch as this big fella and his bride cross the road and the Lamar River to rejoin the herd.

I can’t imagine why anyone would get within striking distance of an animal of this size…

Oh, and one more thing…