HUNTINGDON – “One of the finest cases of citizen involvement I’ve seen in a long time,” is the way Pennsylvania Game Commission Southcentral Region Director Don Parr described a recent Fulton County case in which Commonwealth Wildlife Conservation Officers filed 37 counts on men from West Virginia and Maryland involved in shooting trophy white-tailed deer and removing their antlers or heads.
Charged before Magisterial District Judge Carol Jean Johnson of Needmore, were Joshua M. Smith, 24 of Williamsport, Maryland, and Julian C. Hoffman, 21, of Berkley Springs, West Virginia. Smith was charged with 19 counts and Hoffman with 18 counts, including unlawful use of lights while hunting, unlawful taking or possessing of game or wildlife, spotlighting after legal hours and loaded guns in vehicles. Wildlife officers from Maryland and West Virginia assisted Pennsylvania in investigating these poaching cases.
If convicted of all counts, Smith faces fines of up to $8,100 and Hoffman faces fines of up to $7,300. Additionally, both face the loss of their hunting and trapping privileges for 24 years and 21 years respectively.
After investigating complaints of illegal hunting and shooting from vehicles, Fulton County WCO Kevin Mountz requested additional information through the local news media.
“This was a case of taking only heads or antlers from illegally-shot deer,” Mountz said. “We had some pieces missing from the puzzle and needed help. The result from the public was phenomenal. Numerous telephone calls and an e-mail to our agency’s website provided good information that helped us to develop vehicle descriptions, partial license plate numbers, locations and other important facts.”
The case began to come together when a landowner in southern Fulton County called the Game Commission Southcentral Region Office with information that another antlered deer had just been shot on his property.
“As I received the information, I could see the suspect car in my mirror,” said Mountz, who saw the driver throw a knife under the vehicle after it stopped. The knife was retrieved and appeared to have deer blood and hair on it.
“Recovering the knife and some blood on the suspect’s clothing was our first DNA sample,” he said.
Two deer were killed that evening. After switching cars and hiding the rifle, Smith and Hoffman returned to pick up the deer heads from their illegal kills. When they did, they drove right into a Game Commission stake-out. It was later determined that at least three vehicles were used by Hoffman and Smith.
Additional investigative efforts produced cell phone photographs, seized by West Virginia Wildlife Officer Michael Sibole, that showed at least four sets of antlers from deer illegally killed, plus seizure of deer parts, firearms and ammunition by Maryland DNR officers Jeff White and Scott Forest. The defendants later collaborated with Game Commission officers to confirm illegal deer kills occurring in the area.
“There was illegal shooting behind the Interstate-70 Welcome Center and around the town of Needmore,” Mountz said. “We found it easiest to spot the illegal kills on a 911 map and go from there.”
Don Garner, Game Commission Information and Education Supervisor in the agency’s Huntingdon office said that the Commission’s management regulations of antler restriction have resulted in larger, heavier antlered deer in the state.
“We often comment about how much deer poaching is going on, right under the noses of hunters and other citizens,” Garner said. “If more people got involved, as in southern Fulton County, to curb illegal killing, they would be amazed at how many more deer would be available to law-abiding hunters.”
Mountz concluded by stating, “We said in an earlier statement to the press that if residents would help us, we would do our best to help them. In this case, it worked perfectly. Our witnesses are ready to testify when the case goes to court. We continue to investigate all information provided to us.”
Created in 1895 as an independent state agency, the Game Commission is responsible for conserving and managing all wild birds and mammals in the Commonwealth, establishing hunting seasons and bag limits, enforcing hunting and trapping laws, and managing habitat on the 1.4 million acres of State Game Lands it has purchased over the years with hunting and furtaking license dollars to safeguard wildlife habitat. The agency also conducts numerous wildlife conservation programs for schools, civic organizations and sportsmen’s clubs.
The Game Commission does not receive any general state taxpayer dollars for its annual operating budget. The agency is funded by license sales revenues; the state’s share of the federal Pittman-Robertson program, which is an excise tax collected through the sale of sporting arms and ammunition; and monies from the sale of oil, gas, coal, timber and minerals derived from State Game Lands.
