Poachers
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:
California wardens on
January 28 broke up the Ace
Hunting Club, a bear poaching ring
allegedly run by William Jim Taek
Lee, 35. Trophy hunters paid Lee
$1,500 apiece to be guided to bears;
Lee then sold bear parts both local-
ly and to Korea. The operation
reportedly killed 30 bears and net-
ted $600,000 In a parallel but
apparently unrelated case, t h e
Pennsylvania Game Commission
five days later charged Tae-Ukand
Elaine S. Kang of Coatesville,
Pennsylvania, with illegally traf-
ficking in bear galls.
Robert Coleman, of
West Bloomfield, Michigan, has
been fined $200,000 for poaching
an endangered bighorn sheep in
Mexico in 1989, and hiring smug-
glers to import the pelt. Half the
fine will go to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service ‘s law enforcement
division; $80,000 will go to
bighorn sheep researchers; and the
rest covers prosecution costs.
Convicted of escorting
hunters who didn’t have permits,
Wyoming outfitter Dave Atkinson,
30, was on January 17 fined
$12,000, placed on five years’ pro-
bation, and barred from further
outfitting during that time. Six of
Atkinson’s clients were fined sums
ranging from $2,500 to $4,000.
Joseph Alameda, of
Clarksburg, Caslifornia, w a s
fined $10,000 on January 8 for ille-
gally selling more than 1,000 ducks
to the Elks’ Lodge in Woodland.
Lobbyist Thomas Hale
Boggs Jr., son of former House
majority leader Hale Boggs, was
fined $4,000 on January 2 for
allegedly shooting a wild duck over
a baited field last Thanksgiving
Day. Boggs’ party reportedly killed
182 pen-reared ducks that day, but
made no attempt to retrieve them.
