Hunters fearing bears abandon moose in national park — except for 1 trophy, feds say
A pair of hunters are accused of killing a moose in Denali National Park and wasting most of it — except for one trophy they made sure to take, federal officials said.
The hunters were sentenced to four years of probation after pleading guilty to poaching in the Alaska park in 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska said in a news release Feb. 21.
The brothers-in-law had been hunting for over a week when they shot the moose while it was about 936 yards within the park boundary on Sept. 20, 2021, court documents say.
After they killed the moose, they “spent several hours” at the site preparing to pack out the meat, including “the painstaking endeavor to carve the skull to prepare it for a European-style mount,” court documents say.
They changed their plans and decided to go back to their camp outside the park with two small portions of meat — and the carved skull — when they realized other hunters were watching them, court documents show.
Three groups of hunters reported them to law enforcement, officials said in the release.
The next day, when park rangers first visited the hunters’ camp site, one of them denied “any knowledge of the moose kill” while the other hunter “was out in the field attempting to move the rest of the meat,” officials said.
Eventually, the man who denied it told troopers he had shot the moose and he knew it was inside the park when he killed it, court documents say.
Rangers told the hunters to salvage the rest of the meat, then ran into them the next day as they were leaving the area — with “no moose parts in their side-by-side except for the moose rack prominently strapped to the back” and two small portions of meat they had previously harvested, court documents say.
Rangers found the moose carcass, with the meat “in disarray” after a bear had fed on it, court documents say.
In a sentencing memo, the men’s attorneys said they did not salvage the rest of the meat because of their “natural fear of bears” as well as “buck fever” that clouded their senses.
The hunters handed over the moose skull and meat, court documents say. Rangers salvaged and donated just under 200 pounds of meat — well under the 500 pounds of meat available from an average moose, officials said.
Hunting is highly regulated in Alaska because residents are “uniquely dependent on subsistence living” — and regulations protect animal populations for subsistence hunting, court documents say. What’s more, Denali National Park was established to protect animals from overhunting, and the hunters violated those regulations.
In addition to their four years of probation, the hunters are banned from seeking hunting licenses from anywhere in the world during that time, officials said. Both must pay $10,000 in restitution to Denali National Park.
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