The two didn’t believe the officers when they were informed that they were wildlife officers and bragged and their illegal hunts, their uncle’s illegal hunts, and showed officers an illegal turtle skeleton they had in their bag.
This is a joke:
Mr. Fitzpatrick was fined $1,865 and Ms. Price $1,015, and they both were put on one year of probation that bars them from hunting, according to the department.
Those fines seem really low to me, for federal violations. I would have expected smuggling parts of protected animals across state lines would be in the $10000 range, not $1000. Seems like they got off easy.
No kidding. They were processing an illegally hunted deer when officers arrived, plus their home had a bunch more…
Officers also found mountain lion claws, taxidermied animals including a ringtail cat and a barn owl, an illegally hunted spike buck and several illegally hunted deer with tagging violations, the agency said. Ringtail cats are a protected species in California, and mounted raptors like the barn owl are illegal to possess without state and federal permits.
Talk about a slap on the wrist. They should have been fined for each piece of evidence of their illegal hunting.
I have seen state level infractions that are more serious than that. I watched the DNR impound a dudes truck and confiscated all their fishing equipment, take their license away for the year and give the entire group a fine for fishing about 2 hours before the season opened. Poaching is not cool, and that’s exactly what ‘illegal hunting’ is.
Right? I’m glad they got their uncle roped into this as well, but geez. Why the kid gloves.
