{"id":66486,"date":"2019-09-12T10:36:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T16:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-area-poacher-convicted-for-new-crimes-in-canada\/"},"modified":"2019-09-12T16:36:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T16:36:23","slug":"ignacio-area-poacher-convicted-for-new-crimes-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-area-poacher-convicted-for-new-crimes-in-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignacio area poacher convicted for new crimes \u2013 in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers try to protect wildlife from poaching and other wildlife violations, but doing so can be difficult.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A La Plata County man who has a 30-year history of wildlife violations was convicted this week of new game charges in Canada.<\/p>\n

Robert Peck, former owner of Antler Meadows Outfitters near Ignacio, evaded Colorado wildlife officers from the late 1980s until 2009, when an intense investigation led to a conviction that banned him for life from hunting in the United States.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Canadian courts convicted Peck of five new counts for wildlife law violations.<\/p>\n

Peck, 73, who lives near Ignacio, faces $4,500 in fines and a two-year hunting ban in Canada. In a system where many wildlife law violations go undetected, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife investigation into Peck and his conviction was a success for wildlife law enforcement. However, his Canadian crimes underline the law enforcement branch\u2019s continued concerns about wildlife crime in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt actually doesn\u2019t surprise me, but that\u2019s the way it is,\u201d said Cary Carron, former division wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, after learning of the charges against Peck.<\/p>\n

Carron was involved in the 2009 investigation into Peck. Officers suspected Peck for decades leading up to 2009 based on tips from community members. It was only because a confidential informant came forward with new details that the officers could launch a full investigation<\/a>. Then, it took multiple state and federal wildlife departments, undercover investigators and hours of surveillance to build the case, Carron said.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Peck pleaded guilty to seven counts of wildlife violations, and the 6th Judicial District Court in Durango ordered $18,000 in donations and fines and a hunting suspension until 2033.<\/p>\n

In 2018, a year after his five-year supervised probation ended, Peck again faced charges \u2013 eight in two judicial regions of Alberta, Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cViolating game laws is an addiction to people like this. They can\u2019t give it up,\u201d Carron said. \u201cIn my opinion, Bob Peck is one of those people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peck pleaded guilty to five of the eight original counts: two counts of exercising authority under a license while under suspension, two counts of hunting wildlife (wolves) without a license and one count of possessing wildlife (a wolf) contrary to the Wildlife Act, according to the Provincial Court of Alberta.<\/p>\n

The charges were similar to Peck\u2019s crimes in the Ignacio area, where he led unlicensed hunters on hunts, killed an elk illegally, hunted deer offseason and more.<\/p>\n

Peck was not immediately available for comment. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of guys that never get caught,\u201d Carron said.<\/p>\n

The economic impacts of poaching in Colorado are tough to quantify, said Bob Thompson, head of the Colorado wildlife law enforcement branch, in an email. However, the Wildlife Traffic Institute estimated that the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts may be as high as $34 billion per year nationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three biggest motivators for people to poach are greed (money), ego and thrill killing,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

Poachers are effectively stealing wildlife from the public, he said. They can cause a reduction in the number of licenses available to law-abiding hunters, and they can unbalance carefully monitored wildlife populations.<\/p>\n

One enforcement challenge is the sheer expanse of wilderness that the division monitors.<\/p>\n

The wildlife law enforcement branch has 10 wildlife officers monitoring an area ranging from Wolf Creek Pass to Silverton to the Utah border, said Joe Lewandowski, spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we must rely on the public to report crimes or suspicious activity,\u201d Lewandowski said. \u201cOfficers rarely happen upon a poaching incident by chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carron said most cases are made based on information that officers receive from the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people have information about stuff like that \u2026 it\u2019s really important they contact the wildlife officers,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause that\u2019s the only way (poachers) are going to get caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018It\u2019s an addiction,\u2019 says former wildlife manager<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,13,28,2009,1235,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-hunting","tag-ignacio","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66486"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}