The Chronicle-Journal
A two-year undercover fish and wildlife enforcement operation has resulted in a total of $72,500 in fines for 11 people, including the former owner of a Northwestern Ontario hunting and fishing lodge, the Ministry of Natural Resources reports.
The 11 people pleaded guilty to a total of 68 offences under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, Ontario Fishery Regulations and Migratory Birds Convention Act.
Among those convicted, a former owner and operator of an Eagle Lake tourist camp west of Dryden was fined $7,500 and his business $27,000 for 22 offences. He is not allowed to hunt in Ontario for 10 years.
Six lodge employees were fined between $2,000 and $7,000 for various offences and were banned from hunting in the province from one to eight years. The employees included four local people and two residents of Mineral Point, Wis.
Three lodge guests and a local man were fined from $500 to $3,000 for hunting offences and banned from hunting in Ontario for a year.
The offences included unlawfully hunting wolf, using a hunting licence belonging to another person, making a false statement in a document, making a false statement to a conservation officer, having a loaded firearm in a vehicle, possessing uncased firearms at night, discharging a firearm from a roadway, unlawfully selling game wildlife, unlawfully selling migratory birds, fishing with more than one fishing line, failing to comply with the requirements for an Ontario hunting and fishing licence issuer and possessing an over-limit of Canada geese.
Court heard that conservation officers conducted a two-year investigation over 2010 and 2011, in co-operation with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the departments of natural resources in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Minnesota, and the New Zealand Commission of Wildlife.
The officers discovered that the lodge owner and his staff encouraged clients to hunt wolves without a licence. Staff used their resident licences to validate killed animals or arranged for guests to buy licences afterward.
Conservation officers also found that the lodge owner allowed guests to fish without a licence and later sold them backdated licences.
Guests were served grouse and mallard duck by the lodge and advised that they were fed American elk, all of which the business was not allowed to sell.
The lodge owner also took guests muskellunge fishing and used more than the allowable number of fishing rods, court was told.