A 31-year-old man from Twin Falls, Idaho has been assessed a $6,100 superb 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 also 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 amassing 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 Might 1, and antler assortment is prohibited on the Nationwide Elk Refuge year-round. Many shed hunters have been busted lately for amassing from the Refuge illegally. Refuge employees, with the assistance of native Scouting teams, acquire antlers from the Refuge for the annual ElkFest public sale.
From April 18 via Might 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 docket paperwork acquired by Out of doors Life learn. (It’s unclear whether or not these 150 items symbolize the 1,000-plus kilos of bone or if extra 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 superb.
Cox initially pled not responsible to each felony expenses at his arraignment on Oct. 27, however reversed course and pled responsible to one of many two expenses on Dec. 15. He was sentenced on March 11 in Wyoming District Courtroom.
A lot of the court docket paperwork stay sealed, and there was no point out of sentencing for co-defendant Stanley Cox. However one doc alludes to the truth that an investigator with the Wyoming Sport and Fish Division supplied knowledgeable testimony following a search of the defendants’ cell telephones. One other doc particulars how Cox obtained 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 also be allegedly a Guinness World Report-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 photographs of shed antlers to his Instagram account.
Shed looking violations have change into a much bigger difficulty than ever earlier than. Demand for antlers is extraordinarily excessive, and customers are paying high greenback for every part from canine chews to knives with antler handles, FWS says.
Learn Subsequent: Thieves Are Stealing Extra and Extra Racks From Hunters within the West — and Their Income Maintain Rising
“A lot of these 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 legislation 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 extra officers to the Refuge for this occasion every year to function first responders. Our purpose is to verify everybody stays protected and ready for regardless of the situations could also be.”