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District Recreation Warden Courtney Sprenger
One yr throughout deer season I obtained a textual content on my cellphone from somebody involved about doable poaching.
The reporting get together offered a screenshot from a Fb submit of a hunter posing with a big, untagged buck in a farmyard and included the hunter’s identify.
A fast search of the Recreation and Fish license database revealed that there have been probably greater issues than an untagged deer.
The nonresident hunter didn’t have any North Dakota deer tags.
I discovered the hunter’s Fb web page, and a number of feedback on the submit confirmed my suspicion that the hunter was not simply posing with a good friend’s buck however had actually harvested it.
Sadly, by the point I obtained the data, the hunter had already returned house, so my investigation was not so simple as driving to the residence to see the deer and conduct an interview.
In my investigation, I obtained a search warrant that allowed me to entry the content material of the hunter’s Fb messenger chats for the time interval the hunter was in North Dakota.
Like many proud hunters, this hunter was excited to share particulars of the hunt with buddies again house.
The chats contained a number of footage of the deer and particulars of the hunt – all very useful to my investigation.
One particular chat message stood out to me, not for its particulars relating to the hunt however as a result of it contained a really prescient warning to the hunter.
The hunter had shared a number of footage of the deer with this specific good friend, who was additionally clearly an avid hunter and accustomed to frequent searching rules.
The good friend then despatched this message, “Simply watch out for those who submit footage.
A pair years in the past some buddies of mine have been searching in Montana.
They posted an image on Fb of a very nice buck.
It didn’t have a tag on it but.
Montana Fish and Recreation contacted them the next yr after they got here again to hunt.
The one factor that saved them was that he had all of the paper work that the tag was validated and he occur to have one other image on his cellphone with the tag on the buck.” The hunter then replied, “Sure!!! Don’t share any pics I’ve despatched you” and “I’m being very cautious.”
I chuckled to myself on the information that my case had begun with one image that was posted publicly on Fb.
Actually not my definition of “being very cautious.”
Due to the data obtained from the search warrant, my interview with suspect led to a confession and I used to be in a position to efficiently prosecute the hunter for illegal taking of a giant sport animal.
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North Dakota Recreation and Fish Division
100 N. Bismarck Expressway, Bismarck, ND 58501-5095
Telephone: 701-328-6300
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