Outfitters and Cross-Border Hunters Plead Guilty in Major Cougar Poaching Case 🧑‍⚖️

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

DON’T POACH BIG CATS
ALBERTA OUTFITTERS AND CROSS-BORDER HUNTERS PLEAD GUILTY IN MAJOR COUGAR AND LYNX POACHING CASE

One illegal out-of-season cougar kill in early 2024 has snowballed into a significant enforcement victory for Alberta Fish and Wildlife. Eight individuals, including the owner of a central Alberta outfitting operation and two American hunters, have pleaded guilty to a total of 13 offenses, landing them hefty fines and license suspensions under the province’s Wildlife Act. 

The investigation kicked off back in January 2024 when officers were tipped off about a suspected closed-season cougar hunt involving Byron Stewart, owner of Tracks N Trails Outfitting in Alberta’s Drayton Valley…

🦬 Yellowstone Officials Spare Bull Bison That Tossed Grandpa 8 Feet in the Air. A bull bison in Yellowstone National Park won’t face any consequences after seriously injuring a 65-year-old grandfather from Washington state. The incident, which occurred last Friday at Bridge Bay Campground near Yellowstone Lake, left the victim with a broken femur and other injuries.

Park officials have decided on “no management action” against the bison, aligning with the Park’s general policy of rarely intervening with wildlife unless the animal shows habituated behavior toward people. The bull was highly agitated, and experts say the attack was driven by natural hormonal surges rather than any provocation from McDaniel. Photographer Mike MacLeod, who captured the viral video, and bison expert George Wuerthner both noted that McDaniel did what he could under the circumstances — including drawing the bison’s attention away from his grandson.

McDaniel himself supports the decision not to punish the animal, telling media the bison could have done far worse but didn’t. Bison injure more visitors than any other animal in the park, leaving officials to continually warn the public against treating the landscape like a zoo and recommend giving wild mammals a large berth.

🦌 North Dakota Deer License Demand Crushes Supply, Tags at 50-Year Low. After offering hunters the lowest total available deer tags in more than 50 years, North Dakota deer hunters are facing some tight odds in this year’s deer license draw. The state’s Game and Fish Department offered up just over 39,000 tags this year (a decline of about 3,000 from last year) and was met with an onslaught of applications. With more than 80,000 applicants vying for what has now become a coveted tag in the Peace Garden State, it’s looking like the majority of applicants will go home empty-handed in the initial lottery.

Biologist Doug Leier pointed to long-term habitat loss as a major driver as deer habitat in the state has shrunk dramatically from around 4 million acres to just 1 million acres over the past two decades. While agencies and groups are working to restore cover, habitat work is expensive and slow, as is rebuilding deer populations. The conservative tag allocation aims to ease pressure and support recovery, demanding plenty of patience from resident deer hunters.

🤮 National Elk Refuge Confirms Second CWD Case in Elk This Spring. In some bad, yet expected news out of Wyoming’s National Elk Refuge, officials have confirmed a second case of Chronic Wasting Disease in an elk this spring. The latest positive was a 3- to 5-year-old elk that was found dead in late April, following the first confirmed case in the same month.

The refuge has updated its CWD response plan, which includes stepped-up surveillance during feeding operations, mandatory testing of hunter-harvested elk and deer, carcass disposal via high-temperature cremation, and closer collaboration with Wyoming Game and Fish.

This marks another concerning step in the disease’s spread through the Greater Yellowstone Area’s prized elk herds. Concentrated winter feeding on the refuge has long raised transmission risks, and these back-to-back detections are proof as to how quickly things can escalate once CWD gets a foothold.

😑 Just when you get the concrete to set. These guys helplessly watch as this young buck makes his way across the wet concrete seemingly checking on the quality of the job.

I know some dudes that would definitely leave that just the way it is…

🔱 Spearing African Doggies: Everything in Africa wants to kill you—the land animals, the bugs, the people, even the fish. When most sportsmen think of Africa, they think of big-game hunting on terra firma, but for the hardcore free diving spearfisherman, the first thing that comes to mind is the infamous dogtooth tuna, and we will risk life and limb in their pursuit. For all you landlocked readers out there that are unfamiliar with the sport of free dive spearfishing, it’s basically the act of holding your breath while diving as deep as you can with a speargun and attempting to shoot a fish.

Dogtooth tuna, or “doggies” as we call them, are hands down the pinnacle species in the world of spearfishing. They are pound-for-pound stronger than any other fish, always seem to be just a bit too deep even for the best free divers, love extreme reef drop offs with lots of current, and typically share the same waters with big sharks. If you are lucky enough to get a spear into one, chances are they will destroy your gear or get vaporized by sharks. We call the doggie grounds the land of bent spears and broken dreams. Read the full story.

😊 Laughter, Learnt of Friends: I never had a designated trophy room, but for about 15 years I lived in a large house on a small horse ranch in the southern Sierras. It had high, vaulted ceilings that easily accommodated almost all my trophies. I had never had them all together in one place and it took me a little while to realize much of the pleasure of having them came from what was not there, much as a piece of fine lace gets its beauty not so much from what is seen as from the empty spaces that define what is seen.

The deer and elk and pronghorn on the wall gave both pleasure and memories, but the empty spaces provided even more memories of the deer and elk and pronghorn not taken, the ones that stayed out of range, or never offered a clear shot, or simply vanished in the magical way of wild animals. Read the full story.

🫎 Fishing for Moose : Jimmy had teeth. Barely. Something was starting to turn black at the base of his incisors, but he grinned constantly nonetheless. Dentists came this far north to fish but not to work. Jimmy smoked two packs each day and washed down the nicotine with black coffee from his Thermos. At six feet, I guess he weighed 120 pounds. And at $13 for a pack of smokes in the bush, he probably didn’t have much money left to buy food. Besides, he liked caribou and killed 14 or so every year, he said.  He didn’t care for moose so much, at least not as much as his brother Harry, who had spied a young bull swimming in the middle of a nearby bay.

I watched as Harry circled the bull. His technique was news to me.

“Oh yeah,” Jimmy said. “Do it all the time.” Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…