The Stikine Sportsmen Association is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the conviction of whoever illegally killed a cow moose and left the carcass to rot in the woods south of town.
A hiker discovered the kill and reported it Sept. 24, said Chadd Yoder, the state wildlife trooper in Wrangell. After inspecting the carcass, he estimated it had been dead five to 10 days.
The moose was “human killed,” and all of the meat left at the site, Yoder said Friday, Sept. 29, declining to share too many details about the ongoing investigation.
It is illegal to kill a cow moose and to “fail intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence to salvage for human consumption the edible meat of the animal or fowl,” according to state law. Both are misdemeanors.
And both the illegal kill and waste of meat are “a pretty big deal,” Yoder said.
The moose was discovered in the brush in a muskeg area, about 350 yards from the road, he said, near Nemo Loop Road. The carcass had not been torn open by other animals, though Yoder figures bears eventually would find it — they don’t care much about the age of the food.
The kill site is far enough away from a populated area that the trooper left the carcass in the brush.
An illegal cow moose kill “is not common … but it’s not unprecedented,” said Frank Robbins, area game biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Petersburg.
Yoder said he remembers a cow moose was killed on Mitkof Island about three years ago. His work area generally includes Wrangell, Zarembo and Etolin islands, the Stikine River and mainland areas.
The Stikine Sportsmen Association posted the reward notice last week: “We were notified by the Alaska State Troopers that a cow moose was illegally shot, killed and left for waste out the road. As all hunters know, it is illegal to shoot a cow in our district, but it is unethical and irresponsible as a subsistence hunter to leave hundreds of pounds of meat to waste.”
It might be the first reward ever offered by the group, said Jeff Davidson, the association’s president.
“Just to shoot and leave an animal is abhorrent,” he said Sept. 29.
“This meat would have provided food for numerous community members in Wrangell, and negligence on this animal will simply not be tolerated by the Stikine Sportsmen Association. We are offering $2,500 to the arrest and conviction of the hunter responsible for this event.”
The association asked that anyone with anyone information contact the wildlife trooper office at 907-874-3215.
“I can’t say enough about our partnership with the community,” Yoder said.
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