A couple summers ago I came across a poached elk and a poached deer in 667. I had been biking in behind this locked gate every Sunday all summer scouting, and both of these had been poached sometime in the last week since I had been in there last. Quad tracks were still fresh in the road. The quad had turned around right where they left the elk (no head by the way), and a doughnut was done right below the deer (a doe, left untouched). I knew something was up when there were vultures everywhere.
It pissed me off to no end. I was shaking with fury the whole ride out, and I was ready to shoot the next f**cker I saw riding a quad back there. I went home, called the report a poaching hotline, but they didn't answer. I called back on Monday, got ahold of some stupid woman who kept asking me if I was sure it wasn't a cougar kill. . . No lady, I know what cougar kills are, and they don't take the head and try to cover the corpse with logs. Anyways, after about 5 minutes of convincing her I wasn't some *censored* hiker from Seattle reporting a cougar kill as a poached animal, she connected me to the game warden for the area. I explained to him where I was at, he said he knew the area, and I told him exactly where to find the corpses. I also told him the quad tracks were fresh, and I knew for a fact that the poachings had taken place sometime in the last week. I told him I thought for sure it was someone from a house near the gate (who has quad tracks right along the road etc. and the tracks still fresh in the gravel led right to their fking driveway). He basically told me it was not my place to be making accusations, and that he'd check it out. I also insisted he give me his email so I could send him the pictures I took. As soon as I got off the phone with him I sent him like 4 emails full of pictures I had taken. The next Sunday I rode in there for my weekly scouting trip, only to see that there hadn't been any pickups in there since I had last been in. That pissed me off even worse. Needless to say I never heard anything back from the game warden or department, and they never even bothered to check it out while it was fresh and they could have collected evidence. F**k game wardens, we keep hearing they're cutting them back. Hell I say fire them all, they're worthless.
Oh also, I'll throw in a picture of some of the bulls I'd been seeing in there. . . One of which I'd imagine is the one that was poached. I never saw the group of bulls again that summer.
Here are a couple of the pictures I had taken:
1 The elk, headless, with a failed cover-up.
2 The deer, with vultures all over it.
3 The deer up close.
4 The doughnut the quad rider did coincidentally right below the poached deer.
5 The bulls I'd been seeing in there. . .
