In one of the first cases of its kind, a Maine man has been charged with two weapons violations involving two different wildlife species – after advertising his own crimes.
It’s a virtual criminal trifecta.
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said the strange case began with a tip their wardens received.
The tipster told Game Warden Emerson Duplissie-Cyr a guy had posted selfies online of himself sitting with a scoped rifle next to a deer carcass in a Gorham field.
“Warden Duplissie-Cyr noted there was no open firearms season on deer at that time and based on the video evidence, it was clear the deer had been shot with a firearm,” the department said in a press release.
Duplissie-Cyr and another warden, based on the tip and video selfies they viewed, went into the woods with a trained sniffing K9.
After getting to the scene of what they believed was where the suspected poacher had been hunting illegally and having been given his identity by the tipster they went to question him.
He then took them to where he had been hunting.
“The poacher initially denied a deer had been killed and claimed he was turkey hunting,” Duplissie-Cyr said. “Once confronted with the evidence, he claimed he shot at a turkey with a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle.”
The problem with that story is that it’s illegal to hunt turkey with a rifle. Turkeys are hunted with shotguns.
The hunter then changed his story, saying that “he missed the turkey and incidentally shot the deer, killing it,” Duplissie-Cyr said.
“Based on the scene, video evidence, and the poacher’s explanation of the events, it was determined that he had shot a buck at 200 yards, and the high brush would have made it nearly impossible to see a turkey,” Duplissie-Cyr added.
When wardens found the deer carcass in the woods they realized that it had been harvested by the shooter but some of the meat was left on it, which is also a violation of law.
Under Maine hunting regulations, hunters are not only required to report shooting a deer to a tagging station but also to harvest all edible meat from the kill.
The poacher was charged with hunting deer out of season and hunting turkey with a rifle.
The wardens also seized the man’s weapon.
They said the case is still under investigation and as a result they are withholding the name of the suspect pending further developments.
