Alaskan federal prosecutors charged two men from Montana last month with killing and transporting a brown bear on a national wildlife preserve in May 2022 without a permit.
Richard McAtee, 46, and Arlon Franz, 51, were charged by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court of Alaska on July 17 with one count of conspiracy and two counts of breaking the Lacey Act, which says it is illegal to trade wildlife that has been taken illegally.
Their indictment and a press statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Alaska say that the bear was killed and moved between May 9 and May 12, 2022.
The release says that one of the men—the charge doesn’t say which—was hunting in Alaska without a contract with a master guide as a nonresident, which is against the law.
The brown bear was shot in the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge before the legal season started, and he was in a plane on the same day. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says this is against both state and federal law.
The charge against McAtee and Franz says they saved the hide in the field and took it to a shooting lodge, then to Port Moller, and finally to Anchorage.
Wednesday, McAtee was caught in Kalispell. He went to court for the first time in a U.S. District Court of Montana courtroom. He has an arraignment and detention hearing in Anchorage on August 27. This is what the court papers say shall happen.
Court documents show that the federal government has asked the judge to throw out Franz’s subpoena because he has talked to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and decided to show up for his arraignment.
The men could get up to five years in jail and a $100,000 fine if they are found guilty on all three counts.
The case is being looked into by the U.S. Forest Service, the Alaska Wildlife Troopers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
