Alaska has string of poaching

By The Associated Press

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ANCHORAGE — At least six Dall sheep, a moose and a mountain goat have been killed in a rash of apparent poaching along the Knik River.

Wildlife conservation groups and an Anchorage merchant are offering $4,500 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter or shooters.

The kills don't include Old One Eye, a full-curl ram familiar to photographers and wildlife watchers along the Seward Highway. That Dall sheep was shot and killed along Turnagain Arm in November. Despite several rewards, the case remains unsolved.

Alaska State Troopers working the Knik case say they have recovered parts of six sheep and the scavenged remains of a moose and goat. Troopers also have collected shell casings and fragments of bullets.

But beyond that, there are no leads and no suspects, said Sgt. Tory Oleck, a Palmer-based wildlife officer heading up the investigation.

Oleck and trooper Bill Connors traveled up the Knik River last week and recovered the carcass of a sheep.

A pack of wolves runs the country around the Knik, and wolves favor sheep in winter. But this sheep was clearly not a natural kill, Oleck said.

"There's a bullet hole in the horn," he told the Anchorage Daily News. "It's freshly splintered. You can see the ring of lead where it penetrated the horn."

Reports of dead sheep began about two months ago, and all fall within a stretch of the Knik from Friday Creek to Metal Creek just short of the Knik Glacier. About an hour's ride from the Knik River Bridge on the Old Glenn Highway, the valley bottom is threaded with trails.
 
Only one of the carcasses was found intact, Oleck said. The rest were either picked over by scavengers like ravens or wolves, or butchered for meat. Three were certainly salvaged for meat, he said, but the moose, goat and other sheep were scavenged so badly that the extent of salvage, if any, is unclear.

The most recent find was Wednesday night, when the head of a three-quarter-curl ram turned up in a Palmer man's yard. The man told investigators his dog had dragged the head in, Oleck said. The man is not a suspect.

The dead sheep all come from the same band, probably about two dozen young rams and ewes and lambs, said Gino Del Frate, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The smaller band is part of a larger population of about 900 sheep that biologists counted from planes in the general area in 2002.

Hunting season has closed for all three species. Poaching is a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to a $5,000 fine and a year in jail.

Rewards of $1,000 each are being offered by the Alaska Chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, Alaska Fish and Wildlife Safeguard, Safari Club International and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, according to Dale Minnicks, board chairman for Fish and Wildlife Safeguard, a nonprofit that operates a hot line for anonymous tips.

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