In this episode of NDO Podcast we visit with one of our wardens, whose voice is disguised to remain anonymous, about a particularly complex poaching case involving social media, satellite imagery and trail camera time stamps to bust wannabe hunting influencer, Andy Elliott.
(Intro music)
Cayla: Welcome to episode 88 of the NDO podcast. On this episode, kind of a different one, we've got one of our wardens on with us to talk about a unique case. You'll notice, or I think you'll notice, we're going to disguise his voice and obviously not give you his name. Um. Just to. Yeah. Not give away too much. Um, so, yeah, we'll kind of skip the background and introduction part, um, and probably just dive in. Dive in. Yeah. So Casey has heard the story or was more familiar, but, um, I have not. So, um. Yeah, we'll just.
Casey: Yeah, it's, uh, it's going to be an interesting thing. And what I really want is to try to try to let the the public know, like what goes into one of these things. You know, you guys are out there doing these all the time, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Um, but like to get a big case like this from start to finish all the work you put in. Um, and then in the end, you're relying on a judge and a state's attorney to put those penalties on those people. So, like, I think a lot of times people don't understand how that all goes through. It's like we can do a lot of work and go one way or the other on on penalty and things like that.
Cayla: And also when I see like when we've had these before at staff meetings, you'll notice just the timeline that I guess was new to me. Like this takes so much time, like the actual offense, or at least the original offense, maybe what been years ago. But um.
Casey: So, uh, um, yeah, I don't know, maybe just go into, you know, what the case crime is and, and how you guys started get tipped off.
Cayla: Yeah. What's the what was the first maybe. I don't know if this is where the story started, but what was the first encounter with.
Warden: Absolutely. So the case began on about July 7th of 2023. And it began by one of, uh, one of our supervisors, um, forwarding this case to me to look into, um, there was some suspicion that this, this person was involved in, uh, hunting over bait, over limits of game. And it's worth mentioning at this point, at that point in time, um, hunting over bait in that particular unit was illegal.
Casey: So. Yeah. So for those that don't know, you can hunt with bait. Now in North Dakota, there was a time when we had restrictions on that. Certain units, um, because of, uh, CWD, had baiting restrictions. So that's just the bite that got you guys to start looking into him.
Warden: Correct.
Cayla: It's just the bait.
Casey: It's the bait. That was just the bait to get you to look into them.
Warden: Yep. So, so in the following, I call it weeks and months. Um, this individual was a, um, social media content producer for for hunting and fishing as well. So, so a lot of the stuff we were able to look at was what we call open source information, right? Um, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, things like that. And it just began by just going through, you know, photo by photo, video by video. Um.
Cayla: Already a dumb question, but yeah. So if it's like public, like anyone can go watch that YouTube video, you don't need any paperwork to like, use that in.
Warden: Correct. Okay. Yep. Yep. So, so in doing that, um, we were able to pick up on some things, um, things that that were certainly a red flag for us. Um, most notably, um, taking an over limit of big game of mule deer. Um, so.
Cayla: He publicly sourced, taking.
Casey: Uh, he was a little more clever than that. I mean, not obviously not clever enough, but but yeah, it was. There's a lot of mule deer that went down under this.
Warden: Okay, so so based on that information, I came to the conclusion that that this individual had likely killed four mule deer bucks in, in the, um, fall of 2022. So again, I was looking at it in the summer of 2023. So after it occurred. So, um, again, uh, we thought we were dealing with four, four illegal mule deer bucks, um, and then building off of that, um, moving into the 2023 season, uh, we had some, some spring turkey, um, violations and then obviously moving into the fall, some more big game stuff.
Casey: So one of the ways, looking at some of that public video that I thought was interesting was, um, you guys wardens recognized the spot. And so that's when you kind of went, well, that's not in a different state. That's not in a different spot. It's like all in the same spot.
Warden: Yeah. So coincidentally, I personally recognized where where these hunts were taking place. Um, it's a place that I've been several times and I personally recognize, so. So that was kind of unique, um, in comparison to other cases that we worked just right off the bat, I know right where this is at. So, um, so, so yeah, that was kind of a break for us right away.
Cayla: So where was he saying he was hunting? Like per the video, it said, I'm hunting Mule deer in Montana.
Casey: Really said. And the ones that you showed.
Warden: So he never really said, okay. And, um, there was a lot of photos with animals that were not tagged, but there were some that did have tags, and we were able to obviously see a North Dakota tag attached.
Cayla: Okay.
Warden: Yeah. So and to build on that a little bit, um, so what I did is I reached out to surrounding states that kind of have a similar topography to North Dakota, to the Badlands. Right? So Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, places like that to see if this person had a a mule deer buck license in any of those states. And what I found is he did not. So, um, so so getting back to what I said earlier about, um, I personally recognize where this was happening. Um, one of the videos that this person put out on YouTube, in the video, you can see very clearly two, two deer feeders. Right. And I can also see a cattle pond or a dugout. Right. So so what I did is, is went on to Google Earth and lo and behold, we had a image on satellite image taken in September of 2022. So the exact time that this was going on and lo and behold, um, yeah, found those feeders from. Yeah, you can see them from space.
Casey: Yeah. The interesting thing, when you pulled it up, like some of us leaned in and we're like, do we see the feeders? Oh, and what you're seeing was the shadow of the feeder. Yeah, yeah. So.
Warden: So that was kind of cool. Just to kind of confirm again what I think is happening is it is happening. Right. So, um, so moving into, uh, you know, we talked about we believe there was four mule deer bucks killed in 2022 and that started in September and kind of went I think the last one was killed later in November, middle of November. Okay. So another another thing that I found interesting was he had posted a photo of it of a North Dakota deer tag on Facebook, and we had to do some, some image enhancement to try and read the numbers and stuff on the tag, but.
Casey: It was kind of at an angle. Yeah, picture was at an angle. So it's.
Warden: Yeah, so so this this photo was posted like at the end of the season, like November 10th for instance, of 2022. So very well into the to the archery season. Right. And so we were able to enhance that photo and found that that tag was issued to him.
Casey: So okay.
Warden: So right away. Right. Like any deer that was killed before that photo was taken was either not tagged at all or somebody else's tag went on it. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Casey: So, yeah. So that's one thing that I don't know if people realize either. Like our tags are different colors too. So like, we could tell it was a bow tag. In fact it had 22 on it and it was a certain color.
Cayla: Mhm.
Casey: Um, and so and then of course there's identifiers on their license number, tag number, name and address. And so we had to, we had to, we had to enhance it enough to get one of those.
Warden: Yeah. We actually got a couple. We got a date of issue. We have, we had a license number and a tag number. So we had all three. And we're able to to look and obviously in our licensing system and see who that tag was issued to.
Casey: Yep. Mhm.
Casey: So now we know the guy's name, Andy Elliott in Mckenzie County.
Warden: Yeah. Um so so again moving into you know we go through the fall deer season. We, we move into the spring of 2023 to Turkey season. Right. Um, and then there was some obviously there was photos posted to various social media platforms of untagged turkeys. And I'm not talking in the field. I'm talking back at home or at the vehicles kind of thing. So. Um, so moving into the summer of 2023, um, our, our suspect was, was actually a podcast guest. Um, and he, he had made a couple interesting statements.
Cayla: I was like, what.
Casey: Not on our podcast?
Warden: No,
Casey: Everybody's going like, who is on our podcast? No, not on our podcast.
Cayla: I was like, we only had like two people from the public. Okay.
Casey: It's a North Dakota podcast though. I'll put it that way.
Warden: Yeah. So so there was a couple interesting tidbits in that. Um, one thing he had mentioned was, uh, there was he's got more content that hasn't been put out yet. Right. So that he's holding back on. So so that got me wondering, right. What what else is out there? What else is going on? But more importantly than that, he made a statement that his wife had commented on one of his social media posts, saying that she wants to get her first deer this year. And this is 20 summer of 2023, right? So, um, we already saw that there was an extensive license purchase history from our suspect, his wife and two other family members. And these licenses and tags were all purchased at the same time, at the same place. So it looks to us that there's one person buying all these, right. So, um.
Casey: Which in and of itself isn't crazy because I buy from my wife and my boys when I go in and do the licenses, so.
Warden: But it's just all of these things.
Casey: It's a lot of deer.
Warden: Right? Right.
Cayla: Are you able to like I suppose they don't fill out their surveys is like, could you go to the depth of like asking Chad if they reported that survey as successful? Like if she's saying I haven't shot a deer, but then they report on there, but they probably don't turn in their surveys. Right.
Warden: But why that's important.
Cayla: Not. Yeah.
Warden: Sorry to cut you off.
Casey: No that's.
Warden: But why that is, is relevant in our case, right? Is if we go ultimately and speak with him and he says, well, yeah, we got four mule deer, but I got one. My wife got one. Da da da da da. Right. Right. We already have that. Now we know that. No, she didn't shoot a deer because she's never shot it.
Cayla: Yeah.
Casey: She just admitted she hadn't shot it.
Warden: Right, right. So.
Casey: So, like when you you mentioned the podcast that he was on, um, and, and him stating what did he state on there that like, I can't remember. Go back.
Warden: Uh, so his statement was we got a lot of stuff on there.
Casey: Content, it was the content thing. The he's got content somewhere that he hasn't put out.
Warden: Correct.
Casey: So the question for you in that statement coming from his own mouth, is that enough to get a warrant to search other content, other other stuff.
Warden: At this point in the case? No.
Casey: Okay.
Warden: So anyways, um, yeah. So now we're rolling into we have the spring again of 2023. We have a number of turkey violations that we believe have occurred, and now we're moving into the fall. So again, I got this case in July of 2023. So I've been working on it a couple months at this point where we are in this in time here. Um, so not as many deer were killed in in 2023 as 2022. However, there was two mule deer bucks that were that were killed that I believed were were both taken by him. Um, there was open source social media stuff that showed him in possession of, of one of them untagged, you know, packing the buck out with nothing on it. Yeah. Um, so adding all these things together, we're ultimately getting to the point where we are going to do a search warrant.
Casey: And he was the funny thing is, he was like naming these deer.
Warden: Yeah.
Casey: They all had names, you know.
Warden: Yeah. Yep. So it actually kind of helps.
Casey: Kind of helps.
Warden: Kind of helped me a little bit because because you look at them.
Casey: You look at one of the pictures and he goes, well one of them was curly and I don't know how many times I looked at the different pictures. And then I noticed the one brow tine was curled over. I'm like, okay, so now you know, whenever he says curly, if that like, that's the same deer in all these pictures.
Warden: And he didn't always do that. So we actually did spend a lot of time just looking at different photos of these deer to make sure that they're different, right? Or the same depending on the circumstance. So kind of moving now into kind of November of 2023, um, kind of at this point in time, we did some some checking. And this individual was originally from the state of South Carolina, and we did some checking to see, um, we had some suspicions that, um, some of the family members did not have not taken Hunter education, which is a requirement in North Dakota. And, um.
Casey: Well, probably in almost in every state.
Warden: Everywhere. yeah. Um, so we find out that two of the family members that have been getting licenses and tags, numerous licenses and tags for for more than one season, um, had fictitious Hunter education numbers, as in, they were just put into the system. Yeah. Um, and they were not valid. So so we verified that with with state of South Carolina. Um, so getting back to kind of the licensing stuff, like I said, there was extensive licensing history for for these individuals. Um, anything that required a license or a tag or, um, you know, paddlefish, turkey. Um, stuff like that. Anything they could get their hands on, they he, this individual would purchase. Mhm. Um, but the interesting thing about it was in the social media content that I reviewed, there was never anybody else included in the videos or photos other than him. So it was kind of painted a picture. Right. So um, and again like we had moose, elk, sheep, um, deer gun, deer bow, spring turkey, paddlefish, all of those things were, were being applied for and purchased by by this individual.
Casey: Yeah. He was he wasn't just, uh, individual species content person or something. It was all things hunting.
Warden: Right. Yep. Um, so the next month in, uh, we move into December. Myself and a couple other wardens are kind of working on some surveillance efforts to try and locate this person. We know where he's where his house is already up to this point. But, um, we're we're trying to see if if he's around. And unfortunately, we find that he's gone, you know, and like I said, it's December. There's snow on the ground. The driveway is not shoveled. The mailbox is gone.
Casey: Yeah. Took the mailbox off the post when he left to go southeast or whatever.
Warden: So we found out that, um, you know, we we have some other investigative tools we can, we can use to, to, to locate people. And we found out that, yeah, he was out of state, but he did return, uh, in April of 2024. So go from December when we were looking for him. Shows back up a few months later in April.
Casey: Yeah. Well turkey season is about to start.
Warden: Yeah. Right around the corner. So, um, and then ultimately, um, like I said, all of these things kind of led up to a search warrant and, um, for, for us to obviously obtain some more evidence. And that happened on the 7th of May of 2024. So we were able to locate him like I said, spoke to him, spoke to some of his family members. And again, we learned, um, I learned firsthand that, uh, neither of these two family members have ever killed a deer in North Dakota.
Casey: So they got tags illegally to begin with.
Cayla: Yeah.
Casey: Even if they did.
Cayla: Yeah.
Casey: I'm not sure if that would have been great for them.
Warden: Yeah, well, we'll get to get to something on that later, but, um, so, so as a result of the search, we seized, um, a number of items, um, mainly digital evidence. Like I mentioned in the beginning, this person was a content creator. So as a byproduct to that, we have a lot of photos. We have a lot of videos, things like that. So what we did is we seized a phone, computer, uh, two video cameras, a GoPro, a whole bunch of SD cards, micro SD cards, things like that. Uh, four mule deer shoulder mounts and two mule deer European mounts. So six bucks in total. Um, and then the process started from there of going through this stuff, which was very time consuming. So, um, I'll throw this out there. Um, North Dakota BCI was really helpful to us in this, in this particular investigation and helped us immensely. So thank you to them. But, uh, in total, we had to go through like 116,000 photos and videos.
Casey: That's a lot.
Warden: A thousand audio files, 10,000 text messages. 3,000. I mean, just lots, lots of data, right?
Casey: It may make your eyes gloss over after a while looking at the computer.
Warden: Yep, yep. Um, so again, once we got that digital evidence back from BCI, then again, we go have to go through it all. Like I said, all that stuff there and what we find is it's not good.
Casey: At least not good for him.
Warden: No, no, no, not good for anybody. Really. Right. Um, but yeah, what we learned is, um, these deer were all being killed at night. Um.
Casey: Still with an arrow, though.
Warden: Yeah, yeah. Should we spoil it now?
Casey: I don't know. We'll just let it hang there for a little bit.
Warden: Yeah. So. So if if our listeners might be wondering, how is somebody shooting a deer with a bow in the middle of the night? Right.
Casey: And so did we.
Warden: You can't see your pins.
Casey: Um, because. Yeah, at this point, we would get these videos that, you know, he would take a picture of his arrow in the dark. It's got blood on it in the grass.
Cayla: Okay.
Casey: It's like, well, what's going on?
Warden: Yeah. And that's my first thought.
Casey: That'd be hard to do. I mean, I can't even hit the target during the day.
Warden: Right. And anybody that's an archer knows, like, if you if you look at the fletching on a crossbow bolt versus a modern compound, you know, carbon arrow, a lot of times they're different. You don't see a lot of those four inch fletch on on carbon arrows shot out of compounds anymore. Not to say that it's impossible. Some people certainly do, But, um, to me, looking at those photos that you just referenced, I right away I thought, crossbow, crossbow.
Casey: Something's going on. Yeah, but still, he's got to shoot him at night. That's what he's doing.
Warden: Yeah. So ultimately, um, what we learn is this individual had a night vision scope attached to the crossbow with an infrared illuminator.
Casey: That'll do it. Yeah.
Warden: So, yeah. I mean, his, uh, his trail cameras kind of gave him away on that one.
Cayla: I was gonna say, does he have, like, actual video of the shots?
Casey: Some of them.
Warden: Uh, no video, but we have still frame images, right?
Casey: Um, and it's crazy because, like you, he's got a camera that's facing his blind, and you can see the infrared light in the pictures, which.
Cayla: Yeah.
Casey: You were. I couldn't see if we were standing out there.
Cayla: Right.
Casey: But the camera's picking it up as, like, a big. Looks like a giant spotlight.
Warden: For sure. Yep, yep. And so you could see like these deer walk into the frame. Right. And then you'll see them illuminated. And then we have, you know, one particular deer we have right before the shot and right after the shot, like, right as right as that buck is kind of bucking up, so to speak, after being hit with an arrow.
Cayla: My brother sent me a trail cam pic. He missed a deer this year, and then he sent me the trail cam pic of him missing the deer from the stand. And he's like, this isn't embarrassing enough.
Casey: Careful, the camera's gonna get on it.
Cayla: Anyways. Sorry.
Warden: No. So? So anyways, um. Yeah, once we start kind of seeing that stuff, it's, you know, we.
Casey: Getting serious now.
Warden: Yeah, we didn't. We thought it was mainly just shooting extra deer over, you know, taking extra bucks, but, um, to find out that they were being killed at night with a thermal crossbow, which I will also mention. This individual individual did not have a crossbow permit, period.
Warden: Um, so.
Casey: Well, I mean why I mean, why would he at this point, you know, I'm gonna go get my legal crossbow permit so I can do all this other illegal stuff.
Warden: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Casey: Not thinking that far ahead.
Warden: You know, there was.
Cayla: He's got to be tired. I mean, that's a lot of. I know.
Warden: Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's there's definitely pictures at 1:30 in the morning.
Casey: Yeah.
Warden: Of him being out there. So.
Casey: But he's gotta be tired. You say there's a couple videos where I didn't know if he was gonna make it up the hill. The way he was breathing when he was carrying the turkeys out. I was like, holy moly.
Cayla: Turkeys are deceiving, carry those out of the badlands, they're heavy.
Casey: Huh? All right. Next phase.
Warden: Yeah. So? So we get a little more, um, content as far as photos and videos pertaining to the spring turkey stuff. And what we find there is, you know, several turkeys being killed by the by this person didn't see a tag go on. Any of them. Um, and they were all being shot in the same unit. So obviously another problem.
Cayla: Or at least those during the day. Yeah.
Warden: Yeah, yeah, those were during the day. Well, yeah, unless you want. You did shoot.
Cayla: Well, at this point, I just figured.
Casey: So interesting. You did shoot one with a bow. He got that on film.
Warden: Yes. Yep. And then.
Casey: Which isn't easy to do.
Warden: There was another one where he shot at some turkeys three times, twice, and then finished it with a shotgun.
Casey: So it was sitting in his blind recording himself and shot once with the bow and then kind of looked around, grabbed another arrow, shot again with the bow, kind of looked around, reached down and grabbed the shotgun and shot, which is.
Warden: Perfectly legal for.
Casey: Turkey hunting. You can shoot with either or.
Warden: But the problem was, is he had already killed turkeys prior to that happening, so.
Casey: He'd already killed the one with the bow before and didn't have a tag in that unit anymore.
Warden: So, uh, then there was, there was another.
Casey: Were any of those turkeys? Well, no, they weren't tagged, right. They were not. They weren't. So none of them were taken legally. I was thinking like, did he actually use a tag or.
Cayla: Yeah. Did he have like, what? Did he have one tag for the correct unit like in the lottery?
Warden: Sometimes.
Cayla: Okay.
Warden: Yeah, sometimes.
Cayla: But that's never good, sometimes.
Warden: I think one year he did okay, other years he did not. I can't remember 100%, but, um, there was another turkey too that we have video of, um, that was taken, I believe, five days before the season even opened. Mhm.
Casey: Um, yeah.
Cayla: Should have stayed south.
Casey: Yeah.
Warden: Um, so then kind of from there moving into fall now 2023, um, I had mentioned earlier, we had, we had suspected there was two mule deer bucks that were killed and, and what we found was that was correct. We didn't know if maybe there was more, you know, that we were missing. But, um, from what we found, there was two. And both of those, um, you know, the first one, again, a picture of the of the arrow after it was shot. And again, to me looked like a crossbow bolt. And, um, that one was well after shooting time again, like 9:00 at night, well after dark. And then, uh, the second deer of 2023, we don't have any. We didn't have any photos of him shooting the deer in the dark. Um, we have recovery photos in, in the morning because, like we had talked about earlier, uh, it was very common for him to to shoot him in the dark, obviously at night and then not come back to get him until till late in the next morning.
Casey: And portray anything that he'd done as he was sitting out and shot it right before shooting was over.
Warden: You know, then.
Casey: You wait till morning to find it, you know?
Warden: Right. Um, at least two occasions those deer were consumed, you know, by coyotes prior to him getting there. Which happens.
Casey: I like the one picture he had. That one it was, you know, of course they eat the top right deer's laying there on the side and they eat the top. So if you flipped it over, it actually looked pretty good.
Warden: Yeah.
Casey: And he flipped it over and took the picture and then he put his he must have put his leg over the top to cover like some of the.
Cayla: What a weird pose it was.
Casey: It was so weird.
Cayla: Gosh.
Warden: Yeah. Yeah.
Cayla: So in his videos. I'm sorry I have so many questions. He played it off as it wasn't eaten by coyotes or. Yeah.
Casey: Yeah, noIt was just another deer that he shot. And it was whatever curly or whoever it was.
Warden: Yeah. You know, he'd make a post about, hey, you get out there, do some predator control. Yeah. Things like that. Mhm. But yeah. And then you know there were some other interesting photos, trail camera photos like Casey had mentioned earlier about the infrared camera picking up the infrared illuminator from the crossbow. Right. Yeah. So we had a whole bunch of pictures of that and which was kind of interesting. Um, and then there was also, you know, trail camera photos of capturing him, taking a photo with his phone or with the camera. Right. So, so there was just some interesting content that way as well. Um, so kind of getting, you know, more towards the end of this, like you said, there's a there's a lengthy process involved from the start of an investigation to the end, and in this case is no exception to that.
Casey: So, speaking of lengthy process, how many wardens have hours into this now?
Warden: Up to this point, at least eight.
Cayla: Wow.
Casey: Eight. Eight of our wardens. And then some outside help from BCI.
Warden: And. Yeah, well, you can throw them in the mix. Um, you know, obviously, when when I was looking into this, I made, you know, reached out to.
Casey: Other states.
Warden: Other states too, um, so, yeah, there was there was a few helping hands there. Yeah. Good. Um, but in total, um, you know, kind of adding up the violations, so to speak. Right? Um, so in North Dakota, we have different levels of criminal offenses, right? We have infractions. We have misdemeanors. Class A, class B, we have felonies. Um. Um, so as far as in most game and fish violations are misdemeanors, um, we do have a felony statute, um, for game and fish, and I'll get to that. But so as far as class A misdemeanors, which is again your highest level of misdemeanor, we had 27 counts or 27 violations and which included use of artificial light, fail to take big game illegal taking or attempting to take big game and illegal transportation of big game. And as far as class B misdemeanors. So one level below that we had 38 counts. So 38 separate violations which included hunting after legal hours in excess of 30 minutes. Use use of an illegal weapon exceeding limit a big game fail to maintain taking requirements on deer. Fail to maintain tagging requirements on turkey, hunting in the wrong unit for turkey, illegal taking of wild turkey and misrepresentation on license application. So in total we have 65 criminal charges, right? Which is kind of a lot for for anyone to deal with. So I had mentioned that North Dakota does have a felony statute. And you know, this is a case that I think is appropriate for it, right? Um, so in the end, you know, we have our discussions with with our representation, our state's attorney, and we decide that we're going to instead of charging all 65 misdemeanors, we're going to do two, two counts of felony exploitation of wildlife and 8 misdemeanors. And and to simplify things a little bit. So we were working with a particular state's attorney, like I had mentioned up to this point. And you know, after the search warrant on one particular time, I was I was visiting with our defendant's attorney to facilitate some getting some property returned and stuff like that. But I learned that our attorney had left the office. So we didn't have have a state's attorney.
Casey: Yeah, I was going to say not like left the office because it's like Christmas, but, like, not coming back.
Warden: Found employment elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. So we reach out to, uh, the McKenzie County state's attorney that had elected state's attorney at the time and tell them what's going on, what we have, and explain the case and, and that we we feel it's important and we'd like to see it prosecuted. And and fortunately, he agreed. And ultimately, on the 25th of September of 2024, um, the charges were filed.
Casey: Okay.
Warden: But that's not where it ends.
Casey: So let's just quick time frame 2024. So is that a full year from when you started or.
Cayla: More than a year?
Warden: So I started it again in July of 2023.
Casey: Okay. So like a year and a half.
Warden: Yeah.
Casey: Okay.
Warden: Yep. Um, so moving on to like December of 2024. Um, we're kind of wondering what's going on with the case. And ultimately we find out that the state's attorney resigned his position, and one of the assistant state's attorneys in the office was appointed state's attorney in the interim. So, again, We reach out to her and tell her what we got and and ask if she would, you know, keep keep the ball rolling. Right. And she agreed. So that was good. But it's not. Doesn't end there again. On March 11th, we find out that this interim state's attorney had resigned. Um, and at this point, there's only two two states attorneys left in the office. Her and another, another gal. So, um, but she she resigned too. So we went from several states attorneys in the office to zero. Um, so so that's. Yeah, it got interesting from there. Um, ultimately, you know, the county held some meetings to to try and find some representation for, you know, criminal matters for the county. And, um, a private firm was hired. So ultimately they did find representation, which was good. And we find out that our case was assigned to, to, um, an individual attorney. So again, we reach out, explain everything again. Um.
Casey: You got you got this thing memorized by now?
Warden: Yeah, I did then. I probably forgot some things now, but but yeah, he ultimately he agrees. So that was good to to keep things moving. And um, finally in September of 2025, we finally get a resolution.
Casey: Okay.
Warden: So and what that looked like was, was the defendant, through his attorney, pled guilty to two counts of felony exploitation of wildlife, eight counts of license misrepresentation. Um, he received fines, fees of $5,525. He was suspended. He is suspended until 2032. He cannot possess a firearm or a dangerous weapon until 2028. Um, obviously the the crossbow and the and the night vision scope was forfeited, as was the all the illegally taken wildlife. A lot of it. We seized in the search warrant. Like I mentioned, the the 60 or and but he also had to forfeit a full body mounted turkey. Mhm. Um, he had a 360 day jail sentence which was suspended, meaning he at this point doesn't have to serve it. Um, he has to retake and successfully complete hunter education and then, um.
Cayla: Casey, are you going to teach that class?
Casey: I would.
Warden: And then finally, uh, he must complete a ten minute video to to educate new hunters about the importance of abiding by state wildlife laws.
Cayla: Mhm. I like that.
Casey: We don't have that yet, though. Right. We're still working on getting that.
Warden: Yeah. To my knowledge we don’t have it.
Cayla: That's an interesting. Yeah.
Warden: Yeah that wasn't my idea but it is interesting.
Casey: So I'll just put a plug in here and and say we're going to play you a video. Um, just the audio from, from, uh, one of the times that he was talking about conservation and how, how good, um, he was at conservation because he's this person.
Warden: Steward of the land.
Casey: Steward of the land. And so, I mean, like he made himself look pretty good on his social media stuff for the most part.
Hunter: We're checking some equipment, taking some equipment down and taking a slight inventory. Treading lightly here, not trying to bump no wildlife, but, uh, I got cameras up or Tacticams and, uh, I gotta get, uh, solar panels on some of these. But we do a lot of hunting in here. And, you know, we manage a lot of this wildlife. And what gets me is a lot of these state legislatures are trying to really make it hard on us as hunters and outdoors conservationists to not be able to, you know, bait, especially private lands that we own. And I just don't think that, uh, our legislators and a lot of our lawmakers understand this outdoor way of life that we do and that we hunt and fish provide for our families. But if we really knew we were hurting the wildlife, we would stop feeding the wildlife. Period. There's no better steward of the land than the landowners themselves, and the people who work the land or help work the land. These ranchers out here work their tail off, you know, and a lot of this land that we lease and we're able to hunt. We help them and make sure we manage it and manage it. Right. And you know what seems to me that we're having healthy deer herds. So, you know, I don't know where you are across the country if you're fighting CWD and baiting laws. But I can tell you that, uh, a lot, a lot of us up here in northwest have been pushing back really hard and, uh, just letting legislature know, like, no, we're not putting up with this because, you know, there's no science base behind a lot of this stuff. You know, some guys will say they will. But you know what? I haven't seen no science base behind anything. So, uh, DNR has not come knocking on my door. Talk to me. Uh, they've not set foot on any piece of land that I've ever seen them anyway, that we hunt or lease or either these ranchers that we talked to up in the northwest, um, they never see them. So where's this stuff coming from? And I don't understand how it's backed up, you know, by false. False science, if you want to call it. Because I'm not saying that. That Mother Nature. We had some droughts out here. Mother nature did take care of some wildlife. But you know what? Only the strong survive. And Mother Nature knows what she's doing. So let Mother Nature do what she does. And I think mankind just needs to step out of it. Just my honest opinion. So, you know, if you got an opinion, leave a comment below but, uh, it's kind of where I'm at with it, but we're going to get back and, uh, do just a little bit more management here and clean up and get our cameras set out. It's real late season. We got our tacticams here and, um, getting our solar panels put up on all of our cameras and some cameras moving around the ground, still frozen. So I can't put any new cameras up. Not for steaks. I can use fence posts or whatever, but, uh, it's kind of what we're out here doing, and, uh. Yeah, just having a good time. It's warm, nice and warm. Today. The sun's come out and water's moving and life is evident. It's moving. So you guys hang in there. Stay tuned. 23 is going to be pretty good. We got a lot of exciting things going on. Triple point outdoors. You know them boys over there. You know they're doing the South African thing. Uh, so we got a lot of hunts coming up in South Africa, uh, here in the States. And, um, looking really, really, really, really, really bright for 23. So who knows? The old rain train is going to be coming down the tracks. Full steam ahead, baby. Y'all boys hang in there. Stay tuned.
Casey: Um, so anyway, going this guy, you know, in that video, he says, you know, he's he's hunting on it makes it sound like he's hunting on his own land. He wasn't even hunting on his own land, right?
Warden: That's correct. Yeah. He didn't own, at least at that time, any property to speak of as far as hunting acreage. Right? Yeah. Um, he was hunting on private land that he had. He did have permission to be on, but unfortunately the landowner landowner didn't know what was really going on, you know.
Casey: So yeah. And so I mean, it's it's one of those things where now that landowner is going to be skeptical of every hunter.
Warden: Mhm.
Casey: Um, we you know, we know that's not the case, that every hunter is not bad actually we probably side on the you know, 90 plus percent of them are following the rules and really trying to follow the rules. And we're trying to catch those five percenters.
Warden: Right, yep.
Casey: And so hopefully that didn't sour that landowner too much.
Cayla: Yeah I mean you don't they don't want to feel like they have to like micro like check in on every little thing. Like who shot that deer, what time were you hunting like, um. Yeah. That's such a shame.
Warden: Yeah. And about the time we charged this out, um, I can't remember now exactly how it came, how I came to find this out, but supposedly this this landowner kicked him out of there. Said you got to go. So? So there was obviously some other issues that came up, I think. But yeah. Um, there he certainly wasn't aware of what was really going on. You know, that six mule deer were getting killed. Mule deer bucks. And the unfortunate part is, is. Yeah. After this landowner found out about this, I would.
Casey: Yeah, that'd be interesting.
Warden: Wouldn't blame him for for not wanting, you know. So.
Casey: And I'd be interested to know how much actual conversation this individual had with the landowner or did he just get permission. And he just went, because I feel like we as hunters, can do our due diligence to maintain conversations with landowners so that they know. Yeah, that's we're not one of those people.
Warden: Yeah, exactly.
Casey: And it's kind of like, hey, you know, we shot this buck today, you know, or whatever. Like let him know and tell him thanks. Keep the conversations. Probably have a better relationship with them to begin with.
Warden: But yeah, I mean I mean it's everybody that hunts. It's all of our responsibility. Right to conduct ourselves properly. Right? Respectfully and legally. So yeah.
Casey: Yeah. Sounds good.
Warden: But so that's kind of like the end of my. Yeah. What, what what was my presentation. Yeah.
Casey: So I got a couple questions. So there was the in my opinion there's a misrep on licensing with the fake.
Warden: Yeah. And one thing I failed to mention is.
Casey: The fake hundred numbers.
Warden: Yeah. So one of the individuals that had the fake Hunter education number actually drew a once in a lifetime cow elk tag. And we knew obviously she was not going to be the one to fill it.
Casey: Yeah.
Warden: And this case had not been resolved yet. We were just kind of in the charging phase, you know, in that September end of September time frame. Um, so but what we did is we, you know, worked through his attorney to, to get that license back. So to make sure it didn't didn't we didn't have a utilized.
Casey: Yeah. But I mean realistically we could have charged that to misrep on a license.
Warden: Yeah, and we did. We did.
Casey: Okay. Because I didn't remember it in the list.
Warden: Not on that particular one. Okay. Um, we we just kind of threw it out there like, hey, you get us this license back, and we'll forego charging you for this one. Okay. But there was so many others that.
Casey: Yeah, you know, it's a pretty good stack.
Cayla: Yeah, I think that was one of my. I mean, were the family members charged with.
Warden: No, no And they may not even have knowledge, though.
Cayla: Right. Right.
Warden: The license was being purchased. I think they did. But yeah, at the end of the day, who knows?
Casey: Yeah. Um. Who? Any other questions?
Cayla: I don't know. I'm just trying to.
Casey: Yeah, t's a lot. So ultimately, wrap it up. We had six mule deer bucks taken illegally for we knew for sure were taking at night or five. One we couldn't quite tell. Right.
Warden: Uh, at least four. Right. I think that's pretty safe to say.
Casey: Yeah, for four, we could prove.
Warden: Yeah. Yeah.
Casey: I mean, the other ones had the same M.O. with, uh.
Warden: Right.
Casey: Right before dark, finding him in the morning. So more than likely that was the case. But but that's that's where when you guys get into it, it's like you got to be able to prove it right. The more likely stuff doesn't necessarily help as far as some of that goes.
Warden: To your point, I had mentioned earlier, there was a turkey taken five days prior to season, right? So in that video we had a date, uh, attached to it. But the time was wrong. Yeah. Clearly wrong. Right. Like we can you can tell by watching the video that it's in the morning during daylight. Yeah. Um, but it said it was like 2:00 am, right. So on those particular devices, they're not connected wirelessly. Right. So you have to the user has to put the time in. Yeah. So I think the date was probably correct, but the time clearly was not. So like in that instance we didn't even charge them for that turkey. Right. Just because there was so many other things there that we could prove 100%. Yeah, right. Um, it just wasn't even worth, uh.
Casey: And really to to pinch him. You didn't need that one. Wasn't like the only one he did.
Warden: Yeah. So yeah.
Cayla: So I feel like the hard part for people to remember too is like, I imagine like, this isn't all you've been working on since. Yeah.
Casey: Like, it's not like you just quit and just worked on this.
Cayla: Yeah.
Warden: No. So yeah, there's obviously you're trying to juggle other things at the same time. Yeah.
Cayla: So yeah.
Warden: Um yeah. And it it we're limited on staff in North Dakota. Right. So it's everybody's busy. Everybody has a lot of things to do. So sometimes things take a little longer than you'd like. Right. Um, but at the end of the day I mean we had to, to do this correctly to, you know, as far as collecting our evidence and things like that.
Casey: Mhm. Well, I'd just give a shout out to all the wardens and the job that they do, they're spread thin and they're not only trying to drive to one complaint from the other in their district, they're trying to work on stuff like this and so.
Warden: Yeah.
Casey: It's, it's a an excellent work, and the more of these we can, we can pin down, the better.
Warden: Sure. For the resource. Like I had mentioned to somebody yesterday. I mean, sometimes it's hard to get deer deer hunters to agree on on everything. Right? Like when it comes to how you take animals. Um, but I think everybody that hunts deer would agree that that what was going on here was wrong. Yeah.
Casey: Yep, yep. No doubt. All right. Well.
Cayla: Yeah. I don't know anything else. I almost said it there. Yeah I didn't.
Casey: It's a hard one trying.
Cayla: All right. Well yeah. Thanks for being on and thanks for all your work on on this and everything.
Warden: Thank you.
Cayla: Yeah, yeah. We'll get into the department droppings. So, uh, now's the time to take Hunter Ed. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of, maybe if that guy's looking for class.
Casey: Yeah, he's gotta take it.
Cayla: Um. But. Yeah, just because that's primarily taught through volunteers. Um, lots of classes available in this winter spring time frame. As you can imagine. Um, they like to get out in the fall and, um, so yeah, get ahead of it. Um, subscribe to the alerts and don't wait till the Deer Lottery to get that dealt with. It just don't make up the number.
Casey: I just thought of something. I got a squirrel here. Okay? If we ever get that video from him that he's supposed to make in his sentencing, we need to play it in the hunter ed class he's in.
Cayla: Oh.
Warden: Creative thinking there.
Casey: That just hit me. I'm a hunter head instructor, so I'm I'm looking forward to it. All right. New year of a three year watercraft cycle. So if you've got a boat that needs something that floats, that needs registration, um, now's the time to do it. We've kicked that off so you can get it early.
Cayla: Um, um, apps are now open for North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade Camp. The camp this year will be July 8th through the 12th in Washburn. But, um, yeah. So if you've got kids, uh, 13 to 17 is kind of the primary ages for that get their applications in. It's a really intense week learning about biology, ecology, conservation, but also just a lot of like public speaking, teamwork, leadership skills. Go on that week too. But deadline to apply is March 15th.
Casey: Yeah. And we also have our seasonal hiring applications out going on. Um, this is this one's coming out in the beginning of January. So you've got about a month. And we are hiring fisheries seasonals, wildlife seasonals ANS seasonals. And I think we've got a couple enforcement seasonals. We're looking, uh, to try to get get somebody some experience in, in the field. And, and uh, so if you're interested in that you gotta apply by February 2nd. All right. Now that we've dropped the droppings, you can get off the pot and get outdoors.
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