A 31-year-old man from Twin Falls, Idaho has been assessed a $6,100 nice and a three-year looking ban for unlawful shed looking on Wyoming’s Nationwide Elk Refuge and the Bridger-Teton Nationwide Forest throughout closed season. Jonathan Lee Cox can be banned from setting foot on federal lands in Wyoming for 3 years as a part of his punishment, a press launch from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service introduced on Monday.
“The defendant pled responsible to a felony cost of the tried transport and sale of greater than 1,000 kilos of poached antlers, valued at roughly $18,000,” the FWS press launch reads. “Illegally gathering and promoting antlers is a violation of the federal Lacey Act, which prohibits the transportation and sale of illegally obtained wildlife. The state of Wyoming additionally forbids low season antler assortment from public lands west of the Continental Divide.”
Shed looking season west of the Divide begins on Could 1, and antler assortment is prohibited on the Nationwide Elk Refuge year-round. Many shed hunters have been busted lately for collecting from the Refuge illegally. Refuge employees, with the assistance of native Scouting teams, gather antlers from the Refuge for the annual ElkFest auction.
From April 18 by way of Could 7 of 2023, Cox and co-defendant Stanley Cox tried to “transport and promote 148 shed elk antlers and two intact bull elk skulls having a market worth in extra of $350,” court documents acquired by Outside Life learn. (It’s unclear whether or not these 150 items signify the 1,000-plus kilos of bone or if further antlers and skulls turned up throughout an investigation.) Each defendants have been charged with two counts of tried illegal transportation and sale of illegally possessed wildlife. These two counts may rack up a most of 10 years in jail and a $40,000 nice.
Cox initially pled not guilty to each felony prices at his arraignment on Oct. 27, however reversed course and pled guilty to one of many two prices on Dec. 15. He was sentenced on March 11 in Wyoming District Court docket.
A lot of the courtroom paperwork stay sealed, and there was no point out of sentencing for co-defendant Stanley Cox. However one document alludes to the truth that an investigator with the Wyoming Sport and Fish Division supplied professional testimony following a search of the defendants’ cell telephones. Another document particulars how Cox acquired a reimbursement from the U.S. Marshal for the price of journey to and lodging in Cheyenne for the change-of-plea listening to.
This isn’t the primary time a 31-year-old man named Jonathan Lee Cox from Twin Falls, Idaho has proven up within the outside media just lately. A person by the identical title, age, and hometown can be allegedly a Guinness World File-holding BASE jumper and extremely runner who made headlines after finishing 102 self-supported BASE jumps in 24 hours off the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls in September 2023. He’s posted photos of shed antlers to his Instagram account.
Shed looking violations have change into an even bigger problem than ever earlier than. Demand for antlers is extraordinarily excessive, and customers are paying prime greenback for every little thing from canine chews to knives with antler handles, FWS says.
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“These kind of violations are an ongoing downside, because the market worth of antlers retains going up, we’re experiencing extra theft and trespassing on the Elk Refuge,” David Bonham, FWS regional chief of refuge regulation enforcement, says within the FWS press launch. “The opening of the shed antler season is an enormous deal out right here, for fairly some time. We ship 5 to 7 further officers to the Refuge for this occasion every year to function first responders. Our aim is to ensure everybody stays secure and ready for regardless of the circumstances could also be.”
