Poaching is Pricey in Elmore County

"Thanksgiving Day Poacher" Pleads Guilty In early January, a southwest Idaho man found out that illegal deer come at a high price in Elmore County. Jonathan D. Stafford pleaded guilty to taking a deer with a rifle in an archery-only season on Thanksgiving Day 2002. Stafford pleaded guilty in a plea-bargain agreement when faced with a possible lifetime revocation of his hunting privileges. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail with 55 suspended, two years probation and a five year suspension of hunting privileges. He was fined $1,000 plus $71 in court costs and assessed a civil penalty of $400. In addition, Stafford must repay $1,500 in reward money that was paid out by Citizens Against Poaching. The Idaho State Bowhunters put up $500 of the reward money. An archery hunter in the area witnessed and photographed the shooting of the buck, which had an antler spread of 30 inches. He approached Stafford, who claimed he "finished it off with a pistol" after his arrow did not kill the deer. Such an act is illegal under Idaho law. The archer took pictures of the deer and, from a distance, Stafford and his partner on yellow four-wheelers, then went to the nearest phone and called conservation officer Bob Sellers in Mountain Home. He told Sellers that neither Stafford nor his companion had archery equipment with them at the time the deer was shot. In an investigation that strung out over the next year, Sellers got samples from blood spatters on the four-wheelers, even though they had been shipped off to a friend in Nevada, and genetic biologist Karen Rudolph at the Fish and Game Wildlife Laboratory in Caldwell matched the DNA to samples collected where the buck was dressed. Information from public response to newspaper stories was critical to the investigation. The second person charged in the case goes to trial in March.