Carpenters Nail Goose Poachers

Two Treasure Valley men have pleaded guilty to shooting two geese out of season, from a vehicle and within Eagle city limits on July 17. Three months before goose season opened, Scott Michael Ewing, 24, of Meridian and Todd Allen Campbell, 34, of Eagle were driving through an Eagle subdivision when they saw a group of geese. According to an Idaho Fish and Game enforcement report: "We saw the geese. Scott got excited," Campbell said in his statement to Fish and Game District Conservation Officer Bill London. Ewing asked him to get his .22 caliber rifle from the back seat. Campbell got his rifle, loaded it and gave it to Ewing, who took it, pointed it out the pickup window and fired two shots at the geese from the front seat of the pickup, killing two geese. "I handed him the gun," Campbell said. "He barked off a couple rounds and he got one." Ewing later admitted that he knew the hunting season for geese was closed, and that he knew he shot within the city limits. "The moment's there, you're all pumped up about it your adrenaline is going and you just do it," Ewing said. "You don't think about it you just do it." A framing crew was working on a house about 150 yards away, and another man was about 100 yards away working on a water pump. Occupied houses were only 200 yards away. The carpenters and a local developer approached Ewing and Campbell to confront them. Campbell realized the two were in trouble. "We got kinda scared, and we got outta there," Campbell said. One of the carpenters followed the poachers and wrote down the license plate of the red club-cab GMC diesel pickup. He called the Ada County Sheriff's office. Two deputies responded and began to interview witnesses and collect evidence. The deputies called Idaho Department of Fish and Game. London, with crime scene work completed by the deputies, went about locating the poachers. The red pickup was registered to Scott Ewing and his wife. London tracked down Ewing and Campbell, took their statements and got confessions from both of them. He also seized the Weatherby .22 caliber rifle used to kill the geese. London cited Ewing for killing two Canada geese during closed season, wasting the two geese, and shooting game birds from a vehicle. Campbell was cited for aiding and abetting killing the geese and shooting from a vehicle. Ada County deputies cited Ewing for discharging a firearm within city limits. Initially both men pleaded innocent, but on the day set for trial, August 17, both men appeared in court and pleaded guilty. Ewing was sentenced to 10 days jail, with another 80 days suspended, fines and costs of $1,928, six year revocation of hunting privileges and two years of supervised probation. Campbell was sentenced to 10 days in jail suspended, fines and costs of $1,652 and a three year revocation of hunting privileges. The court ordered the rifle sold at the annual Idaho Fish and Game auction.