Hunting & Trafficking

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

Chad McKittrick, 42, of Red
Lodge, Montana, was convicted by a jury
on October 25 of illegally killing one of the
15 wolves who were released into
Yellowstone National Park in February.
McKittrick shot the male wolf on April 24.
Song Ho Kim, of Vancouver,
British Columbia, was convicted November
16 on 11 counts of illegally trafficking in bear
parts. Convicted a month earlier of a similar
offense was K.H. Yong, also of Vancouver.
The two were nabbed in a crackdown apparently
begun after Peter Knights of the privately
funded Global Security Network photographed
bear parts for sale in 13 out of 20
traditional pharamacies in Vancouver’s
Chinatown.

Father-and-son John Partney,
46, of Van Buren, Missouri, and Andrew
Partney, 22, of Cape Girardeau,
Louisiana, were charged on November 18
with illegally killing hundreds of bighorn
sheep, elk, deer, turkeys, and prairie dogs,
often in national parks and wildlife refuges.
Butterfly dealer John Kemner, of
Dripping Springs, Texas, has been fined
$500 and placed on probation for three years
after pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor.
Kemner had faced up to 30 years in prison
and a $1 million fine for allegedly smuggling
more than 30,000 endangered butterflies,
moths, and beetles into the U.S. from
Mexico, for resale to collectors. Kemner
pledged to voluntarily quit the bug business.
A huge majority of Maryland residents
opposed opening a state bear season
at three out of four public hearings held in
November––but at Accident, Maryland, 95
people supported a hunt with just 10 opposed.
The New Hampshire Fish and
Game Department halted the state’s bear
hunt a month early on November 3 because a
record 451 bears had been killed. The department
had extended the bear season in July to
encourage more killing.
Bowhunter James Adams, 24, of
Burnside, Pennsylvania, required 700 stitches
on November 11, after a bear purportedly
ambushed him as he left his tree stand.
One hundred twenty-five irate
residents of Estes Park, Colorado, crowded
into the Municipal Center on November 17
to demand the prosecution and punishment of
a 35-year-old bowhunter, known to police
but neither named nor charged, who allegedly
killed the town mascot, a tame bull elk,
six days earlier.
George Joseph May, 41, of
Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, said he mistook
fellow hunter Megan Bantom, 50, of
Linwood, for a fox on November 11. May,
not licensed to kill fox, shot Bantom through
the neck from 50 yards away, but she lived.
Matthew Elliot, 18, of Mannington,
West Virginia, told police he mistook
bowhunter Gary Jackson, 24, for a squirrel
when he fatally shot Jackson in the groin.
Oklahoma game wardens say the
state’s year-round open season on coyotes
has become a catchall excuse for poachers,
who inevitably claim, when caught jacklighting,
that they were only coyote-calling.
In Louisiana, both election day
and the first day of duck season fell on
November 18––and may have been a decisive
factor, pollsters say, in some close races
where hunters preferred killing to voting.
In Britain, 11 days after arsonists
burned a trailer outside East Northants
Against Bloodsports campaigner Clive
Richardson’s home on October 12, a second
firebomb attack razed his garage, car, and
two motorcycles. The attackers purportedly
also dragged a neighbor’s car into the road to
block fire engines.
An unidentified hunter risked the
peace in Cyprus on November 1 by illegally
entering the United Nations-patrolled buffer
zone between Greek and Turkish communities
and shooting an Austrian corporal in the
shoulder, mistaking him for a bird.
A drunken French hunter was
arrested on October 27 for using his shotgun
to bring down a low-flying Puma helicopter
troop transport. The blast severed the helicopter’s
fuel line, but caused no injuries, as
the pilot made a safe forced landing before
the spraying fuel caught fire.