There is a kind of poaching that never needs a spotlight or a night drive. Rather than under the cover of darkness, this kind of poaching activity happens somewhere like the kitchen table, on a laptop, with a credit card and a zip code that isn’t quite true. That is the alleged story surrounding 50-year-old Brian Beckstead of Vernal, Utah who is now facing wanton destruction of wildlife (of a trophy animal) after investigators say he held resident hunting licenses in two states at once and used a Utah resident limited-entry elk tag to kill a 6×6 bull back in 2022.
While most of the cases we cover start with a tip from the field, this began by happenstance. It started at a boat ramp in Uintah County when a conservation officer noticed out-of-state registrations on a boat and truck.
It was this past April, when a Utah conservation officer working Red Fleet Reservoir watched two people — later identified as Beckstead and his daughter — load a boat. Taking notice that both the truck and the boat were registered in North Dakota, the officer decided on a routine check and asked the pair for their fishing licenses. Beckstead went on to tell the officer that he had lived in Vernal about six months and had “just got” a Utah driver’s license. A routine story, the officer thought, that is until records indicated that his license was issued back in November of 2024 and that vehicle registration in Utah is generally supposed to be updated within 60 days of a move.
At this point, the only thing that had piqued the officer’s interest was perhaps some sloppy paperwork and residency overlap when it came to fishing licenses. This routine stop didn’t turn interesting until Beckstead decided to talk up a big old bull he said he killed back in 2022 after drawing a limited-entry elk tag in the Wasatch Mountains unit.
Now with the makings of a residency scam in motion, the officer sat and listened while the suspect did the briefing for him, including sharing photos of the bull he had on his phone. Seemingly unbeknownst to Beckstead at the time, that conversation opened the file that would soon land him in hot water.
Now with the possible fishing violations becoming an afterthought, investigators decided to pull Beckstead’s license history in both Utah and North Dakota. They found that in Utah, he had bought resident licenses from 2002 through 2024, with two exceptions in 2019 and 2020, when he bought non-resident licenses. Included in that stack was the 2022 resident limited-entry bull elk permit for the Wasatch Mountains unit — the tag that put the 6×6 on the wall.
Working alongside officials in North Dakota, Utah investigators learned that Beckstead purchased resident licenses and permits there from 2016 through 2025, representing an overlap with Utah resident purchases from at least 2021 to 2024.
Doing some additional digging, investigators soon found that IP addresses tied to Beckstead’s Utah permit purchases from 2017 to 2024 resolved back to North Dakota. On September 7th, officers reached him by phone while he was working in North Dakota, getting him to once again, acknowledge the 2022 bull. During that conversation he said he could not remember holding resident North Dakota permits at the same time.
Unfortunately for Beckstead, officers in both states had enough evidence to jog his memory and he was charged last week with one count of wanton destruction of wildlife valued at more than $500 or a trophy animal. He forfeited the elk mount from his Vernal residence, which will be used as evidence in his pending case.
Under Utah’s restitution schedule, the suggested minimum for a trophy bull elk is $12,000.
He was not arrested on the allegations and was instead issued a summons. No news on pending court dates as of yet.
