Bow hunter Ron Niziolek and his bull | Ron Niziolek
It was late last month when a Park County jury put one seemingly ethical bowhunter's concerns to rest, clearing him of any wrongdoing after he took on a pair of misdemeanor waste-of-game charges.
Those charges stemmed from an incident that took place last September when Cody bowhunter Ron Niziolek dropped a nice bull late in the evening and returned to retrieve it the next morning. When they arrived ready to pack out the meat, Ron and his companions, Adam and Mary Miles, came across a scene that would give even the most seasoned elk hunters shivers down their spine. As they approached Ron’s bull, Mary Miles later told the jury that the elk’s midsection had been eaten out, and noticed two fresh piles of what they took for grizzly scat beside the carcass.
Now with their arm hair undoubtedly beginning to stand on end, the three made the difficult decision to leave the animal for the bear that had claimed it. After spending about 40 minutes on-scene, the group decided to lop the animal’s head off for a European mount that would one day commemorate the unique situation. Notably, Ron admitted that he did not punch his elk tag as he was under the impression that a bear-claimed carcass meant the hunt was over and he could look for another bull.
Unfortunately for Ron, he made that decision without bringing in Wyoming Game and Fish on the brainstorming session.
Photo of the claimed elk | Ron Niziolek
Well, it didn’t take long for another hunter to come across the headless carcass a couple of days later and call it in. Coming across the desk of Powell/Sunlight Game Warden Jordan Winter, he was on the site a few days later to check things out. With little to go on at the time, it wasn’t until Winter was thumbing through an issue of Bowhunters of Wyoming quarterly and noticed Niziolek posing with a very familiar bull. This prompted Winter to make contact with the hunter, where the warden was treated to a full and complete admission as to what happened and led to the pair of charges.
The law in Wyoming on wasted game is relatively simple and straightforward. Wyoming Statute 23-3-303 states that no person shall take an animal and leave the edible portions — front quarters to the knees, hindquarters to the hocks, backstraps and tenderloins — to “intentionally or needlessly” go to waste. A second clause, added in 2013 to close a trophy-only loophole, says you cannot keep any part of an animal that has been wasted.
That is why Niziolek drew two tickets, about $450 apiece, which included one for the meat, and one for the skull.
Winter’s position was that unless a bear was actually on the carcass when the hunters arrived, they would still be expected to haul out the shoulders, loins, and quarters; believing that contamination is something you sort out after the meat is out of the field. The hunting party said a previous Sunlight warden had told them the opposite after a 2016 bear-claimed elk.
“I was told by the Game and Fish game warden that once a bear bites into an elk … — and they urinate and sometimes defecate on the carcasses as well to claim it — ... the risk of disease is so high, you don’t want to take any of the meat,” Mary Miles testified.
Niziolek stated that by leaving the meat, the group was acting on that very guidance, along with an instructional video produced by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department showing hunters backing away from a bear-disturbed bull.
Circuit Judge Joey Darrah kept the trial neatly ordered inside those facts and barred Winter from offering an expert opinion on whether the chest-cavity damage looked like typical bear feeding, all while leaving out a recorded interview with the Mileses that Game and Fish turned over two days before trial. What the six jurors ended up having was a photo of an opened elk, testimony about scat, a hunter who’s spent the better part of 40 years hunting and living on wild meat, and a statute that hinges on the words “intentionally or needlessly.” Defense attorney Sarah Miles (yes, they are related) put the photo in front of them and asked the only question that mattered.
“Does this elk look to you like it intentionally and needlessly went to waste?” she said, pointing to a photo of the elk. “After listening to everything you heard here [during the trial], would you have taken that meat home and fed it to your family?”
The six-person jury acquitted him after about an hour.
Niziolek went on to tell the jury that he never thought it would come to this and that this is the part that should bother Game and Fish more than the verdict.
And while that may be a fair point, it still doesn’t excuse his refusal to notify Game and Fish at the moment he and his group decided to abandon that carcass. From where we sit, if someone in the field is ever unsure of the rules of engagement, the one thing an honest hunter owes the badge is a phone call before he walks away from the meat.
