Case File  #7   November 2006

On November 7, 2006, Warden David Georgia received an anonymous OGT call regarding illegal hunting of deer on Marsh Island in Old Town. Marsh Island is a Wildlife Management Area that is closed to hunting. 

 

The complainant advised that two shots were fired from a residence and, shortly after, a young male jumped on an ATV, was gone for 15 minutes and returned carrying a large object wrapped with a blue tarp. The object was loaded into a truck. The complainant was able to determine the last four digits of the Maine license plate and knew the suspect’s last name.

 

Warden Georgia responded to the woods in back of the residence and obtained blood and deer hair from the scene. ATV tracks were present and it was apparent that the tracks came to and from the suspect’s residence. Warden Georgia decided to confront the suspect at his residence. The suspect was asked if he shot and registered a deer to which the suspect allowed that he had. The suspect showed Warden Georgia the spike horn buck bearing a registration tag. When asked if the suspect had killed the deer behind his residence, the suspect replied, “Dave, I go hunting every day and I never see a thing. I come home and there’s always a deer in the yard”. In his voluntary statement, the suspect said he shot the deer with a .22 (which is illegal in Maine) and that he also knew that it was illegal to hunt deer on Marsh Island.

 

The suspect was charged with Illegal Hunting on a Wildlife Management Area, Hunting Deer with a .22 caliber rimfire rifle and Illegal Registration of Deer. The cases were adjudicated in early 2007 and the individual was convicted.

 

OGT is one of a game warden’s best lines of defense and a tool for concerned citizens to reports acts of poaching. Operation Game Thief works – are you ready to use it to report an act of poaching?