Two men in Idaho face jail time, hunting license revocations and thousands of dollars in fines and restitution for their involvement in several seasons of elk poaching.
In 2016, Jonathan Blaschka and Charles McCall, both of Mountain Home, used rifles to shoot and kill two bull elk year Yellow Pine even though they only had archery tags. Blaschka returned in 2017 and again used a rifle during archery season.
Using information from an anonymous call to the Citizens Against Poaching (CAP) hotline, Idaho Department of Fish and Game officers launched an investigation.
Blaschka was sentenced to 30 days in jail, to be served during the next four months, and was ordered to pay nearly $9,000 in fines, court costs, processing fees and restitution. His hunting privileges were suspended for four years, and he also received two years of unsupervised probation.
For his part in the poaching spree, McCall was fined $1,380 and lost his hunting privileges for one year.
Find more details here.
(Photo source: Idaho Department of Fish and Game)