Washingtonians poaching in Alaska

[Washington Hunter]

This is amazing. These guys don't screw around. When they decide to break a law, they don't stop at just one or two. |oo

Hunters charged in big-game haul
OUT-OF-STATERS: Troopers say two men used resident permits.

By ALEX deMARBAN
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: March 14, 2007)
Two Washington state hunters who went on a big-game killing spree here last summer have been charged with 43 crimes, Alaska wildlife troopers said Tuesday.

Carson Kemmer, 24, illegally killed four animals: a caribou, Dall sheep and brown bear along the Dalton Highway in the Brooks Range and an undersized bull moose near Turnagain Arm, said Sgt. William Connors, supervisor of Anchorage's wildlife investigations unit.

Joseph Querin, 53, illegally killed an undersized Dall sheep in the Brooks Range, according to Connors. The men, from Ocean Park, Wash., hunted for two-and-a-half weeks beginning in late August, he said.

Querin illegally obtained an Alaska-resident hunting license along with four hunting permits, Connors said. He shared the permits with Kemmer.

"They came up here and took pretty nearly every species of big game animal we have," Connors said.

The charges include unlawful possession of big game, unsworn falsification, wanton waste of big game, nonresident taking big game without a guide, illegal taking of undersized sheep and moose, unlawful transfer of harvest tickets and hunting without a license.

The misdemeanor charges could come with jail time and are punishable by up to $10,000 each, Connors said.

The unit launched the investigation after getting a tip from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife last fall, the state said. Troopers in Washington and Oregon helped with the investigation, Connors said.

"We've seen killing like this in the past," he said, but it's unusual for out-of-state hunters to illegally kill so many big-game animals in such a short period of time, he said.

Kemmer admitted to the killings after officers served a warrant on his house, Connors said. They found photos documenting the hunts, and a bear skull and hide in a plastic bag in a freezer. They seized a sheep hide and horns from a taxidermist in Oregon.

The men packed out some of the meat, but not all of it, Connors said.

Alaska wildlife troopers never found Querin, a former Alaska resident, to interview him, Connors said. The two men could not be reached late Tuesday.

Melissa Querin, 33, said her father, Joseph, calls her occasionally. He's a fishermen and often doesn't live on land, she said.

"He's hard to track down," said Querin, of Yakima, Wash. "He's pretty elusive."

When told Alaska wildlife troopers wanted him, she said: "Good luck with that."