In the great tradition of guys who just refuse to stop doing the thing they love, meet 66-year-old Donavon John Yates, a serial poacher apparently immune to the concept of a suspended hunting license. With multiple prior convictions on his record and a license revoked since 2019, Yates now faces a fresh batch of charges after authorities say he killed and tried to sell roughly a dozen protected bobcats using tags borrowed from his daughter.
Mr. Yates, of Nephi, Utah, was charged Wednesday in 4th District Court with four third-degree felony counts of wanton destruction of protected wildlife. In addition to the felony counts, he is also facing 10 class B misdemeanor counts of violating a suspended hunting license and one class B misdemeanor count of transferring a hunting or fishing license.
According to court documents, Yates allegedly stacked 12 bobcats between December 20, 2025, and January 18, 2026, then showed up on February 19th trying to sell them — all while his hunting license had been suspended since March 2019. Investigators later discovered that every animal was tagged with permits his daughter had obtained and quietly handed over to him.
Bobcats are technically protected in Utah, though you can hunt and trap them legally if you navigate the proper DWR paperwork. Selling them without authorization is, of course, illegal. None of which appeared to slow Yates down.
Unfortunately for our boy, this is hardly his first dance with wildlife authorities. In 1991, a jury convicted him of illegally possessing four bobcats, setting illegal traps, and failing to check them as required by law. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail.
In 2005, he took his operation on the road and crossed the border into Nevada. After falsely claiming Nevada residency to get a resident trapping license, he harvested 53 bobcats and two gray foxes. In that instance, a judge fined him, hit him with a $5,500 civil penalty, ordered him to forfeit more than $12,000 in pelt proceeds, 98 traps, and handed down a suspended six-month jail sentence. During the sentencing in this case, Yates reportedly told the court he went to Nevada because Utah’s bobcat rules were too strict. Go figure.
Then came 2008, when he was hit with dozens of counts of wanton destruction of protected bobcats, only to walk away with a plea deal that dropped everything to a single class A misdemeanor that netted him a couple of days in jail, probation, and $2,500 paid to the DWR’s Help Stop Poaching Fund. Separate poaching charges from the same year were quietly dismissed.
This latest stack of charges have the potential to finally bring real consequences that could (and should) include thousands in fines, possible prison time, and yet another revocation of privileges Yates has already shown he’s happy to ignore.
After more than thirty-five years of light slaps on the wrist, suspended sentences, short jail stays, and restitution checks that never seemed to stick, maybe this time prosecutors and judges will hunt for something that actually deters a man who clearly views bobcat season as a higher calling that bureaucratic paperwork seems to get in the way of.
Or perhaps this whole viciously illegal cycle is allowed to continue. Only time will tell.
