Montana’s Culture of Leniency Toward Poaching

[MTGomer]

Now if only everyone could get this wound up over the crimes committed against people as well, we'd really have something going. Dont get me wrong, the OP is absolutely correct - this type of sh*t needs to get to a vote where the penalties can be stiffened...but hey, as a nation we have done away with mandatory minimums for all but the most heinous of crimes. Unfortunately, the FEAR of punishment is ALL that keeps some marginal citizens from doing truly bad things...remove that fear and you see here what you get in exchange.

Montana also has a culture of leniency for DUI, negligent vehicular homicide and sexual assault against women too, but they probably don’t fit under the scope of ‘Sportsmen Issues’ quite as well as poaching elk does.

 

[Mtelkhunter3]

How easily poachers often get off on their wildlife crimes in Montana has always bothered me.
In case the offender is the type to seek retaliation, I will leave out a few details that would identify those whom made FWP aware of his deeds, although ultimately he got himself caught by sending pictures to a lot of people and being loose lipped.
A friend of mine drew a bull tag in a difficult to draw district known for producing trophy bulls. This is a the type of guy that hunts his ass off, is honest, does things right and applied for a lot of years to get this special tag. He became aware of a very large bull and started hunting him in archery and then into rifle season. The later in the year it got, the more the bull transitioned to mainly living on private but would come into public occasionally.
One day or night Matthew Cool decided to poach this bull on private land, drive his pickup illegally onto federal public lands, unloaded an ATV, tore up a creek bottom with it, cut the fence into private property, entered the private property, cut two more fences and recovered the bull. This wasn’t a mistake or a judgement lapse. This was planned out, premeditated, blatant poaching.
This bull was rough scored at 391” far exceeding the ‘trophy’ minimum of 360” which can
lead to a restitution of $8,000. On top of that a person could face confiscation of their ATV, Fines, lengthy license suspension, and jail time, not to mention non wildlife charges such as destruction of property etc.

In all, he received approximately $2500 in fines and a 24 month suspension of his licenses and all jail time suspended from charges of criminal mischief and unlawful possession. A slap on the wrist in my opinion. Is that really all a bull like this is worth?

Below are the sentencing documents and the poacher Matt Cool with the bull.

I think we need to demand more of our county attorneys, prosecutors and judges. IN this case, FWP did their job. They followed up on reports, collected evidence and issued citations. What a slap in the face to the warden such a limp wristed sentence is.

Does anybody have any thoughts on how citizens might demand better? Are mandatory minimums the answer?

View attachment 91863

View attachment 91864

View attachment 91865

View attachment 91866

I’m not even seeing this until now which is stupid, people who do this need to be blasted everywhere and definitely fined properly and given the proper consequences like a felony, forfeiture of firearms, and loss of privileges for life I can’t believe they didn’t make him pay a large restitution fee because that definitely qualifies as a trophy, unbelievable and I’m willing to bet it’s not any different in 2024

 

[Mtelkhunter3]

Poachers should be made to work at check stations in the fall while wearing a shirt that explains what animals they poached. Having hundreds of hunters standing there telling their kids what a POS poacher that guy is would do more than these slap on the wrist punishments like this or the one where the guy had to watch bambi once a month.

I absolutely love this idea