‘I know it was wrong, but that’s what I did’

A British Columbia man who came to the Yukon to help his father bag a moose has been handed a $7,500 fine instead, after conservation officers caught him hunting without a licence.

A British Columbia man who came to the Yukon to help his father bag a moose has been handed a $7,500 fine instead, after conservation officers caught him hunting without a licence.

Jim Toth Jr. was in the Faro area last September, accompanying his 80-year-old father on a moose hunt.

Jim Toth Sr. held a guide licence and a moose tag at the time, but, as Toth Jr. told a territorial justice of the peace this week, the elderly man could not get close enough to his target for a clean shot.

“He asked me to shoot the moose for him,” Toth Jr. said. “I know it was wrong, but that’s what I did.”

He then put his dad’s tag on the moose. The hunting party cleaned the carcass and headed back to camp. When they arrived, a pair of conservation officers were waiting for them.

At first, Toth said it was his father who had shot the animal, but when the officers told Toth Jr. they had been watching the camp all day and never saw Toth Sr. leave, the son owned up to killing the animal himself.

The COs headed to the kill site and recovered approximately 100 pounds of meat from the carcass.

Toth Jr. was charged with hunting without a non-resident hunter’s permit and wasting meat. He pleaded guilty to the charges this week.

After Crown prosecutor Lee Kirkpatrick read out the facts of the case to the court, Toth Jr. - who attended by telephone from his home in B.C. - said he would like to add something.

“In the conservation officers’ report, they kind of painted a picture of us as an elaborate poaching ring,” he said, “when really we were just a bunch of guys out hunting.”

Toth Jr. said he never intended to shoot anything himself, but when his dad couldn’t do it, he stepped in.

Pictures of the meat recovered by the COs were entered into evidence. Toth Jr. said the photos gave an unrealistic idea of how much flesh had been left on the bones.

“We took as much as we could,” he said. “We felt that we took all edible portions of the meat.”

Justice of the Peace Dean Cameron listened to Toth Jr.‘s comments and responded by saying hunting laws are in place to protect a precious resource.

“We can’t allow a bunch of guys to just pick up and go hunting in the Yukon,” he said. “I understand you are fully aware of that.”

Morrison accepted the Crown’s suggestion of a $5,000 fine for hunting without a permit and $2,500 for wasting the meat.

The maximum fine for each charge is $15,000. The B.C. man is prohibited from hunting in the Yukon for five years and Morrison ordered that the meat and hunting trophy be forfeited.

Conservation officers had already seized the moose meat and antlers when the charges were laid.