Compared with neighbors, Missouri poachers get off easy

It was a heinous, senseless, greedy act in late December that shocked game officials and wildlife lovers across the state.

A healthy bull elk was shot in the head and killed on the banks of the Current River in Shannon County, its antlers gruesomely chainsawed off the top of its skull. The perpetrator has yet to be caught.

It was the kind of high-profile case that many believed would lead to tougher poaching sanctions in Missouri, a state that already lags behind many others in the way poachers are prosecuted.

Some wildlife supporters say Missouri's poaching punishments are weak and prosecution is not aggressive enough. Others say Missouri's low poaching fines offer little deterrence and poachers are emboldened.

Even if the elk poacher is arrested, that person would face only a misdemeanor penalty that game officials say rarely leads to a full $1,000 fine or actual jail time.

And the public outcry over the elk case so far has not been able to move a Missouri House bill forward that would for the first time establish significant restitution fines against poachers who illegally kill elk, deer, black bears or wild turkeys.

"At this point in time we're at the 11th hour and I couldn't get it out of committee," said Rep. Linda Black, a Park Hills Republican who sponsored the poaching restitution bill.

"I am highly disappointed that the Committee Chairman took it on himself to deny the public body from looking at this legislation. He has sat on it long enough to effectively kill this bill."

Black was referring to Rep. Jay Houghton, a Martinsburg Republican and chairman of the House Agriculture Policy Committee. Despite strong support from conservation and wildlife leaders, Black said Houghton refuses to move her wildlife restitution bill for a committee vote.

She had a hard time even getting Houghton to allow public testimony on the bill.

"I had to repeatedly ask the chair (Houghton) just to have a public hearing on it," Black said. "The Committee Chairman has a longstanding issue with the Department of Conservation."

Last year, Houghton filed a bill that would have prevented the department from partnering with nonprofit conservation organizations, which the department frequently does. Proponents of the bill said the department had a too cozy relationship with the Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation. Opponents of the bill said the partnership between the department and foundation was beneficial to the state. The bill stalled in the General Assembly.

Houghton did not respond to numerous News-Leader efforts by phone and email to reach him for a comment about HB 1971.

Stiffer penalties proposed

Black said the bill would help deter poaching in Missouri by making it significantly more costly to poachers if they were caught.

In Missouri, people who illegally kill wildlife can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, with a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in jail.

Eighty-four Missouri counties also use the state's Uniform Fine Schedule for Conservation Violations that lets people pay many wildlife code violations by mail, if they don't dispute the charge. Some of those counties tack on an additional charge for court costs.

The Missouri Department of Conservation works with the state-run Fine Collection Center to determine which violations can be handled through the mail-in process. The conservation department also works with the Fine Collection Center to set the fine amounts, which cover a long list of possible wildlife code violations.

Poachers also can lose their Missouri hunting privileges, based on a detailed point system.

Under Black's bill, anyone who illegally kills an elk or black bear in Missouri would face an additional fine of $3,500. Killing a turkey illegally could cost an extra $750, while taking a deer illegally could add $1,500 to whatever civil penalty a local judge might order.

Black thought the highly publicized Shannon County elk case would help propel her bill into law.

"Gruesome and horrific, yes it was," she said. "It was the result of Missouri being too lenient with its poaching laws."

Some might see Black's proposed restitution fines as steep, but that's not how many other states value their wildlife. Utah, for example, fines poachers up to $30,000 for killing a bighorn sheep, $8,000 for killing an elk or deer and $6,000 for killing a bison.

Kansas recently implemented a trophy poaching law that bases its fines on the size of a deer or elk's antlers. An illegally killed deer whose antlers scored 200 inches could cost a poacher up to $20,000, while an elk with antlers scoring 350 inches would set a poacher back as much as $45,000.

Like Missouri, Iowa can seek civil penalties in county courts for poaching cases. But it also sets costly restitution fines for some of its game animals. Restitution fines for a deer with antlers that score more than 150 inches, for example, range from $5,000 to $10,000 with community service, or up to $20,000 if the poacher declines to do community service.

Elk, antelope, bison and moose taken illegally can result in a restitution fine of $2,500.

Poaching fines in Iowa are paid into the state's Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund and are used for wildlife-related purposes, according to Conservation Game Officer Aaron Arthur.

"I'm sure it's a deterrent," Arthur said of the hefty fines. "The trust fund receives about $225,000 in fines per year, but poaching would be worse without them."

In Arkansas, even snakes get some protection, with restitution amounts ranging from $5 to $20.

Dean Harre, protection division field chief with the Missouri Conservation Department, said Missouri's poaching laws might be more effective if local prosecutors and judges more aggressively pursued cases brought to them by game officials.

He said the maximum penalty — a $1,000 fine and year in jail — is very rarely given in Missouri poaching cases, and that lack of full prosecution emboldens poachers. He believes some local courts don't take wildlife code violations as seriously as other similar misdemeanor crimes.

Harre could not immediately recall any recent cases in Missouri where a poacher actually served time in jail.

"A lot of things go into determining what gets prosecuted," Harre said. "You put your best case forward, but then it's out of your hands. It's discouraging to a lot of agents when their tickets are not filed or pursued."

Harre said poaching used to be more of an issue with poor people killing game to feed their families.

"You still see that sometimes, especially when the economy gets bad and it's hard for some people to put food on the table," he said. "And there are some counties that look at things as acceptable, like deer dogging (using dogs to hunt deer) and handfishing, when in the wildlife code it's not."

But Harre said the rise of trophy-animal poaching and commercial harvesting of game — like paddlefish — continue to be major concerns for conservation officials.

"Commercial poaching, that needs to be hit hard," he said. "But rarely do you see anyone get the maximum fine or jail time."

Harre said he liked the idea of Black's restitution bill, but notes the fines only applied to five animals and were nowhere near as high as states that have enacted trophy poaching penalties. Because big fines are rarely given in Missouri poaching cases, Harre questioned whether the current penalty system has much of a deterrent effect on poachers.

"I've worked in the field before, and a lot of times the poacher is more worried about seeing their name in the paper than paying the fine," he said.

A widely reported poaching incident in 2012 illustrates Harre's point about lack of full prosecution. In that incident, Conservation Agent Tom Leeker said he received information through the state's Operation Game Thief hotline about two men who had killed two trophy-sized deer out of season and at night near Bakersfield in Ozark County.

One buck had 17 points on its antlers and scored an impressive 199 inches, while the other had a rack with 11 points and scored 140 inches.

The poachers, Austin Lamb and Grady Bentley, used a 22-250 rifle to shoot the deer in a field while using a spotlight to illuminate them.

"I wrote them a couple of tickets each, for spotlighting and taking a deer in a closed season," Leeker recalled.

Despite the seriousness of the case, online court records show both men were fined $500 plus court costs, given a suspended jail sentence of 30 days, and one year of unsupervised probation.

Leeker said the two poachers didn't appear remorseful at all.

"No, I don't think they were," Leeker said. "They regretted getting caught. Lamb just wanted to know how he could get his deer back."

Their outlook might have been different if they each also faced a $1,500 restitution fine as proposed by Rep. Black's now stymied bill.

Strong support

The bill has strong support from the Conservation Federation of Missouri.

"We absolutely are in favor of her bill," said Brandon Butler, executive director of the nonprofit conservation group, which is the largest private conservation organization in Missouri, with more than 85,000 members. "The poaching penalties we have now are not enough to deter poaching in Missouri."

Butler testified in favor of Black's bill during its only public hearing and said the testimony had to be cut short because there were too many people signed up to support the bill.

"Nobody testified against it," he said.

He described poaching as "stealing wildlife from the citizens of Missouri," but said other states were more aggressively combating poaching by implementing much higher restitution fines than even Black's bill proposed.

"It's a good step in the right direction, but it's still not good enough," Butler said. "It identifies five animals, but we'll be working on a more inclusive bill. The elk that was poached in Shannon County started a conversation we needed to have in this state. Getting a tougher poaching bill will be a strong focus for Conservation Federation of Missouri next year."

It's not just deer or turkeys that typically are poached. Game officials say commercial poachers frequently target Missouri paddlefish to illegally sell their eggs as faux caviar. Because paddlefish cases typically involve selling eggs across state lines or even internationally, those poaching cases often are prosecuted at the federal level.

Game fish also have been targets of poachers. In a November 2015 case, three people were issued citations for harpooning bass, crappie and catfish with a gig at Pomme De Terre River in Polk County. Gigging game fish is illegal in Missouri.

If another poaching restitution bill comes up in the Missouri statehouse next year, it will have the backing of Missouri's biggest outdoor retailer, Bass Pro Shops.

Bass Pro Director of Conservation Martin Mac Donald said the company didn't get an early heads up about the restitution bill.

"But we absolutely would have testified for it, and we're very supportive of House Bill 1971 by Linda Black," Mac Donald said. "Historically, penalties for illegal taking of game have been undervalued. Low fines are not a deterrent to poachers. Higher is better. Also, another problem we face is judges that don't understand the value of wildlife."

He said the company would work with other groups to help advance a poaching restitution bill "if not this year, then next year."