Denali: Conviction For Illegal Hunting

Denali National Park & Preserve (AK)
Conviction For Illegal Hunting

On September 16, 2008, park pilot Colin Milone and ranger John Leonard were conducting a poaching patrol in a park airplane on the south side of the Alaska Range near the confluence of the Kanikula and Tokositna Rivers – a location that is over two miles inside the park boundary. They spotted a Piper Supercub airplane parked on an unimproved gravel bar and an empty raft pulled up on the opposite shore of the Tokositna. Deteriorating weather conditions forced them to return to the airport in Talkeetna. Suspecting that illegal hunting activity was taking place, Leonard requested the park's contract helicopter, which is stationed in the park’s North District. The helicopter flew to Talkeetna with rangers Dan Fangen-Gritis and Scott Pariseau, picked up Leonard, and subsequently landed adjacent to the parked Supercub. The rangers soon contacted two hunters in the field, 56-year-old David Talmadge Harger and 29-year-old Jonathan P. Bush, both of Anchorage. Each was in possession of a hunting rifle and handgun, but had not yet taken an animal. In taped confessions in the field, both men admitted that they were there hunting moose, but denied knowing they were in the park. The US Attorney's Office in Anchorage filed an information last fall charging Harger and Bush with illegal hunting under 36 CFR. On January 21st, pursuant to a plea agreement, Harger pled guilty in federal court. He was fined $1,000, payable to the park's wildlife protection fund, placed on a year's probation, and lost his hunting privileges for a year. Arraignment for Bush is pending. AUSA Steven Skrocki prosecuted the case on behalf of the NPS.