BOSTON — An unlikely alliance between animal protection groups and hunters is driving a proposal for stiffer penalties for those who poach deer, turkey and other wild game.
Under the proposal, which is being considered by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, violators would face hefty new fines, license suspension and jail time for multiple offenses.
Massachusetts has become known as a “paradise” for poachers because of its outdated game laws and paltry fines that do little to deter illegal hunting, trapping and fishing, according to one animal protection advocate.
“Illegal hunting and fishing damage conservation efforts, affect future generations of wildlife, create challenges for law enforcement and threaten our state economy,” said Rep. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead, a primary sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives.
“This is a proposal that will preserve the rights of law-abiding hunters while protecting our wildlife and natural resources.”
Backed by 70 lawmakers, the bill has strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Local co-sponsors include Reps. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester; Paul Tucker, D-Salem; Linda Campbell, D-Methuen; Brad Hill, R-Ipswich; as well as Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Salem.
The proposal also would add the Bay State to the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, a national database that shares information about suspected poachers and the suspension of hunting, fishing and trapping licenses.
Massachusetts is one of only two states, including Hawaii, that hasn’t joined the pact.
Animal protection groups say joining the pact would help change the state’s reputation as a safe haven for poachers.
“Right now, we’re unfortunately known as a paradise for poachers,” said Stephanie Harris, Massachusetts state director for the Humane Society of the United States.
“They know they can come here and poach animals and not face consequences, even if they’ve been convicted of illegal hunting in their own state.”
Under the pact, hunters who have been convicted of poaching or had their licenses revoked elsewhere would be prevented from getting one in Massachusetts.
Hunting groups, which seldom side with animal protection organizations on proposed legislation, are onboard with the tougher fines and penalties.
Under current game laws, the vast majority of poaching offenses carry as much weight as a parking ticket.
Some fines haven’t been updated in more than a century.
“Many of the fines for poaching are too low, which isn’t a deterrent,” Ehrlich said. “They’re basically letting willful offenders off with a slap on the wrist.”
Under the proposed changes, fines for killing a deer or turkey out of season or without a hunting license would rise from a low of $300 to a high of $3,000 per offense.
Violators could also face up to six months in prison.
Illegal killings of a bird of prey, which are protected species, will cost poachers up to $10,000 for multiple offenses, including up to a year in prison.
The proposal also adds smaller animals that now bring no fines for poaching.
Poaching a raccoon, rabbit or gray squirrel could cost you $50 per animal.
Last year, lawmakers increased fines for commercial and recreational fish poaching as part of a $2 billion environmental bond bill signed by Gov. Charlie Baker.
In the past three years, state environmental police have reported 2,242 wildlife and hunting violations, including hunting without a license and hunting on wildlife refuges or on other lands where it’s off limits, according to the state Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Police made 183 arrests for illegal hunting during that period and issued more $63,000 in fines, according to the state agency.
Supporters of the tougher sanctions say poaching is rampant in the state’s forests and parkland and is mostly unpunished.
Wildlife officials estimate that for every animal harvested legally, at least one other is poached.
A similar plan was approved by the Senate last year but wasn’t taken up by the House before the end of the legislative session.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites.
The bodies of at least 28 hippopotamuses have been found in Ethiopia’s national park in the southwest of the country, local media reported Monday.
The semi-aquatic mammals died in the Gibe Sheleko National Park, a part of the Gibe River, local broadcaster FANA said.
Behirwa Mega, head of the park told FANA that the animals died between April 14 and 21 and that the cause of their deaths is presently unknown.
The Gibe Sheleko National Park, was only established in 2011, is reportedly home to about 200 hippos and covers approximately 36,000 square kilometers in land area.
The IUCN estimates the global population of hippos is between 115,000 and 130,000 and that their conservation should be a “priority” in countries where they exist.
Hippo populations are threatened by poaching, disease, loss of habitat, deforestation, and pollution, according to experts.
They are hunted by poachers who export their long canine teeth from African countries to places such as Hong Kong and the United States where they serve as substitutes for elephant tusks, says the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.
And the hippo population in Africa will face a significant reduction when a scheduled culling of the animals in Zambia begin in May despite objections from animal rights groups.
The cull will happen in the Luangwa River Valley in Zambia’s Eastern province, the Department of National Parks & Wildlife said in February.
The UK government has announced it will provide £4.6 million in funding for projects tackling illegal wildlife trade around the world. They include efforts to stop smuggling in Madagascar, to disrupt the grey parrot trade in Cameroon and to reduce demand for marine turtle products in Nicaragua.
The UK has pledged to spend £36 million to fight illegal wildlife trade between 2014 and 2021. The new projects are among a series of actions to emerge from a major conference held in London last October.
“The Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund is backing projects that will tackle the criminals at source and in countries that are destinations for items made from illegally traded plants and animals,” environment minister Thérèse Coffey said in a statement.
The government is also drawing on expertise in behaviour change science to recommend the most effective approaches to reduce demand for illegal wildlife products, such as environmental education and social marketing.
Another initiative, the Wildlabs Tech Hub, has brought together conservationists and engineers to develop new technological tools to combat wildlife crime, with support from Google and Arm.
“It’s hugely encouraging to see efforts under way to address key drivers of illegal wildlife trade, in particular to tackle illicit financial flows,” says Richard Thomas of Traffic, an NGO focusing on global wildlife trade.
Two issues that require more attention are corruption – a key facilitator of wildlife crime – and cybercrime, Thomas says. “The latter is a rising threat, in part because of successful efforts in shutting down physical market places, which has led to more transactions going online where they are more difficult to regulate.”
They passed around a bottle of Malibu rum as gunshots bellowed into the desert night. A trio of young men had set up camp near the unincorporated town of Crystal, 80 miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. As recently as 2005, the tiny town hosted two brothels, but by April 2016, it was pretty much empty, ideal for carefree camping on a moon-like stretch of desert, the perfect place to pass around a bottle and a shotgun for some bunny blasting.
As often happens on a night like that, things went downhill. Drunk on rum and the roar of the gun, the three men fired up an off-road vehicle and drove away from camp. Riding in back was Trent, a chestnut-haired, bearded 27-year-old, who carried the shotgun and blasted away at road signs as they tore across the Amargosa Valley and Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. They headed toward a remote unit of Death Valley National Park: Devils Hole, a deep pool inside a sunken limestone cavern. The area’s surrounded by 10-foot-tall fencing, a fortress erected to protect an endangered species of pupfish found there.
Trent shot at the gate to the pedestrian walkway area and then shot the surveillance camera and yanked it from its mount. Then he and one of his companions, Steven, stumbled into the enclosure. Steven was so intoxicated that it took him multiple tries to clear the fence. Inside the enclosure, he paused to empty his bladder.
Filled with mischief, Trent lunged toward his partner and punched him in the crotch with a left hook. Then, as Steven stumbled over to a large boulder to vomit, Trent dropped the shotgun, stripped off his clothes, and slipped into the deep warm water of Devils Hole. He didn’t know it yet, but that would prove to be his worst mistake of the night.
Devils Hole pupfish — some of the rarest fish in the world — are found only in a deep geologic fissure fed by water from the aquifer that lies below the Mojave Desert.
Brett Seymour/NPS Submerged Resources Center
SIXTY THOUSAND YEARS AGO, a narrow fissure opened up in the Amargosa Valley, releasing water pooled deep in the earth and creating Devils Hole, the opening to an underwater cavern. Scientists disagree over just how it happened — whether by way of underground tunnels, ancient floods or receding waters — but several desert fish were separated from the larger population and trapped in Devils Hole. There, a tiny sub-population — the Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) — evolved in extreme isolation for tens of thousands of years, eventually, according to scientific consensus, becoming an entirely new species.
Today, visitors to Devils Hole get a rare window into one of the Mojave Desert’s vast aquifers. Steep limestone walls surround a tiny opening into turquoise water. Divers have descended over 400 feet into the cave without reaching the bottom. The water is so deep that earthquakes on the other side of the world cause it to slosh, shocking the fish into spawning.
The environment in Devils Hole is so remote and extreme that scientists have long puzzled over how the pupfish can live there at all. Still, a modest population has managed to survive on a shallow, sloping rock shelf that gets just enough sunlight — only four hours per day at its peak — to allow algae to grow for the fish to eat.
The environment in Devils Hole is so remote and extreme that scientists have long puzzled over how the pupfish can live there at all.
The Devils Hole pupfish are truly unique. The males are a bright blue, the females a subdued teal, and they’re only about an inch long. They are more docile and produce fewer offspring than their cousins, which are found in pockets ranging from the Southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico. The Devils Hole pupfish lacks the pelvic fin that enables its kin to be vigorous swimmers. But it is able to thrive in temperatures far warmer than similar species can tolerate. Trapped by geology in a consistent 93-degree womb, Devils Hole pupfish have nowhere to go. In fact, they have the smallest geographic range of any known vertebrate species on earth.
The pupfish were among the first species to be protected under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1967 — along with the American alligator, the California condor and the blunt-nosed leopard lizard — and that protection was carried over to the Endangered Species Act of 1973. At the time, around 220 survived in Devils Hole, but since the 1990s, the species has been in significant decline, sinking to just 35 fish in 2013. Today, there are modest signs that the population is growing; the last population count was 136.
The tiny fish has become an icon for those looking to protect endangered species and their habitat, but it’s a target of deep resentment in Nevada, and particularly in Nye County, where, according to critics, the interests of an obscure fish are pitted against the livelihood of local agricultural families. The issue has tested water rights in this arid part of the American West and raised questions about how far officials should go to save a handful of imperiled fish. The drunken invasion of its habitat in 2016 was not unprecedented: Dozens of trespasses have been documented throughout the decades. But such crimes are difficult to investigate and rarely prosecuted.
This time, however, would be different.
Video from security cameras in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge shows three men entering the Devils Hole enclosure. Then, a few minutes later, the pool is disturbed by a foot splashing into the water and a man walking around. Then you can see a Devils Hole pupfish swimming away from a foot. National Park Service
ON MONDAY, MAY 2, 2016, Kevin Wilson, an aquatic ecologist and manager of the Devils Hole research program, arrived at the National Park Service outpost in Pahrump, Nevada, a beige, low-key building in the middle of anti-fed country.
“We have some news you won’t like,” one of his research associates told him, gesturing toward a surveillance video playing on her computer screen. Wilson peered at the images just as one of the three trespassers tried — and failed — to clear the fencing before barging his way in on the other side of the enclosure.
“As I watched the surveillance footage, I could tell they had definitely been drinking,” Wilson told me when I visited in February. “But it was really just the one guy that had actually gotten in the pool that concerned me the most.”
Wilson, who is 51 with dark gray hair and bright blue eyes, wears his green uniform comfortably, a slight potbelly protruding above his belt. He jokes often, but the deep wrinkles in his face, tanned from years in the unforgiving Nevada sun, give him a stern appearance.
Normally, the nocturnal visitors would have been caught by a motion sensor that triggered a loud alarm. But a barn owl roosting in the area had caused too many false alarms, and rather than spook the bird, officials had disabled the device. So once the men broke in, they felt no real urgency to leave. Little did they know that multiple cameras captured their every move.
A small earth tremor that occurred over the weekend had prompted Wilson’s staff to review the footage. “Obviously, we saw much more than we had been expecting,” Wilson said, raising an eyebrow.
The video continued to play in Wilson’s office. As one man swam, another remained at the edge of the water, while the drunkest one leaned against a rock. The swimmer climbed out of the water, dragged himself over the algae-covered shelf and got dressed. Then the party fled on their off-road vehicle.
Wilson paused the video and backed it up. The man who fired the shotgun and plunged into the pool had left a few things behind — his wallet and cellphone. The next morning, in the fog of a hangover, he broke in to Devils Hole to retrieve them, ignoring the empty beer cans and his underwear, which was still floating in the water.
Wilson reviewed one particular piece of footage, a view from an underwater camera, over and over: A foot plunged through the placid, algae-filled water onto a shallow shelf — the only breeding area in the world for the Devils Hole pupfish. The man had waded in at the most inopportune time possible, in late April, the peak breeding period for the pupfish. “I couldn’t immediately tell if any fish were harmed,” Wilson told me. “But I decided to do a site visit to find out for sure.”
That morning, Wilson, his research team and a bevy of law enforcement officials assessed the damage. The area reeked of vomit; beer cans were scattered around and Trent’s underwear still floated in the water. The group huddled around for a closer look. In the pool, a single bright blue pupfish was also floating on the surface — dead.
In the pool, a single bright blue pupfish was also floating on the surface — dead.
Kevin Wilson ascends from the Devils Hole pool, reachable through the gate of a locked enclosure. In April 2016, three men climbed the fence and scrambled down the rocks to reach the pool, which is closed to the public.
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News
IN FEBRUARY, WILSON TOOK ME TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME. Wilson has dedicated a good portion of his life to pupfish. He first visited Devils Hole in the 1970s, when he was just 8 years old, tagging along with his geologist mother. Those early visits to national parks and camping trips with his family helped inspire his post-graduate work: the first-ever holistic study of the Devils Hole pupfish. And then the perfect job opened up at the perfect time. “As soon as I defended, this permanent position to study the Devils Hole environment and the pupfish opened up. I’ve been here ever since,” Wilson told me as we stood near the edge of the pond, as cold raindrops began to fall. Just paces away, pupfish flitted through the water.
The 2016 trespass swiftly activated an intricate legal enforcement network designed to protect the fish. After reviewing the footage and finding that a pupfish had indeed died as a result of the incident, Wilson notified the National Park Service at Death Valley and in Washington, D.C., as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Nevada Department of Wildlife and the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.
A team called the Scorpion Task Force was assembled. Its leader was the Park Service Investigative Services’ Paul Crawford, a seasoned Brooklyn-born detective with a constellation of freckles across his face. In 2012, he was the lead detective investigating the murder of ranger Margaret Anderson in Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park.
Based in Boulder City, Nevada, and nearing retirement in 2016, Crawford decided to make the trip to Devils Hole. He would supervise two other men: Morgan Dillon and Josh Vann. Dillon, a detective for the Nye County Sheriff’s Office, jumped at the chance to work on the case. “I was excited that I might have an opportunity to go all the way down to the pupfish pool and see the fish,” Dillon told me. “I originally went to college to be a wildlife biologist. I’ve always been passionate about that and still like to read scientific articles on the pupfish. Me, personally, though — I wasn’t smart enough to be a scientist, so I became a detective instead.”
“I originally went to college to be a wildlife biologist. I’ve always been passionate about that and still like to read scientific articles on the pupfish. Me, personally, though — I wasn’t smart enough to be a scientist, so I became a detective instead.”
Vann, a ranger at Death Valley National Park, worked alongside Dillon. At Devils Hole, they gathered three empty beer cans as well as two empty boxes that had held shotgun ammunition, two live rounds and multiple spent shotgun shells. Dillon attempted to fingerprint the beer cans and swabbed them for DNA evidence. He even collected the underwear and entered it into the case file.
Abundant surveillance footage gave the detectives clear images of the three suspects’ faces. “We see you, and now we’re going to find out who you guys are,” Crawford remembers thinking. The four-wheeler stood out most: a blue Yamaha Rhino, with flamboyant stripes along its doors. “It was altered with a second seat, extended roof, skid plates up front. It wasn’t something these guys bought and just drove off the lot,” Crawford said. “Those are a dime a dozen. We would have never found them.”
On May 6, Crawford put out a crime-stoppers tip form. Meanwhile, back at the Nye County Sheriff’s Office, Dillon showed his colleague, Sgt. Thomas Klenczar, an off-road aficionado, video stills of the customized vehicle. “We were really just BS-ing about it,” Dillon said. “But he’s into OHVs and is always on Craigslist, so he decided to take a look.” Minutes later, Klenczar and Dillon found the vehicle on Craigslist. It had been listed for sale just one day prior to the drunken break-in. “The fact that the vehicle was so unique and that we were able to quickly find it on Craigslist was the one and only piece of this that allowed the case to move forward,” Dillon said.
Dillon used the phone number from the Craigslist ad and a house number in one of the photos of the Yamaha to come up with the owner’s name. A photo of the man — Steven Schwinkendorf of Pahrump — matched one of those on the Devils Hole footage.
Scorpion Task Force leader Paul Crawford. A custom four-wheeler, driven by the suspects — spotted on Craigslist by one of the investigators — helped crack the case.
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News
THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY WAS AN ANXIOUS ERA for the National Park Service. The fledgling agency hemmed and hawed over its identity and whether or not it included a responsibility to protect wildlife and wild spaces.
From the 1920s through the 1940s, the Park Service managed land mostly for tourists to enjoy. In one of the agency’s founding documents, Interior Secretary Franklin Lane described developing the parks as a “national playground system.” The prevailing attitude at the time was that protecting a rarely viewed species like the Devils Hole pupfish was a project “better left to another agency,” according to Kevin Brown, an environmental historian who authored a 2017 Park Service book on the history of Devils Hole.
With no entity charged to oversee Devils Hole and the pupfish, the deep cavernous pool gained fame among locals. The area, with the pupfish swimming serenely within it, was subject to constant trespass. To this day, locals often refer to Devils Hole as the “Miner’s Bathtub.”
In 1950, an ichthyologist named Carl Hubbs excoriated the Park Service for its refusal to protect Devils Hole. Early the following year, Lowell Sumner, a Park Service biologist, visited Devils Hole and did a pictorial study of it. He argued that it was in the national interest to include this geological wonder in Death Valley National Monument. In 1952, President Harry Truman added the Devils Hole unit to Death Valley National Monument under the Antiquities Act, specifically mentioning the “peculiar race of desert fish,” and declaring that all of the species and ecosystems of Death Valley would be protected. “It was incredibly forward-looking at that time,” said Patrick Donnelly, the Nevada state director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “That was really what began this saga of the role that pupfishes ended up playing in battles down the road.”
A car streaks down the Bob Ruud Memorial Highway west of Pahrump, Nevada.
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News
ON MAY 9, 2016, THE SCORPION TASK FORCE — Dillon, Klenczar and Vann — drove through Pahrump, Nevada, to meet their first suspect in person. The harsh beauty of the desert around Pahrump clashes with the severity of the city’s neon glow. Under the surrounding Black Mountains, the desert’s sage seems greener, the needles of its barrel cactus redder and the flash of the nearby casinos, motels and fast-food chains even brighter. One street is named “Unicorn,” another “Tough Girl.” “Don’t Tread on Me” flags wave above many front doors. The locals elected brothel owner Dennis Hof to the State Assembly, a month after the self-proclaimed pimp and so-called “Trump of Pahrump” died of a heart attack on his 72nd birthday, at a bash attended by notorious Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the porn star Ron Jeremy.
The detectives located the suspect’s home and walked to the door. Steven Schwinkendorf, dark-haired, 6 feet tall and topping 200 pounds, answered it, facing Dillon, his arms crossed. A small boy, Schwinkendorf’s son, peeked around his legs. Dillon showed the photos from the surveillance video and asked him if the vehicle was his. Schwinkendorf admitted that it was and explained that he had already traded it in as part of a deal for a new four-wheeler.
“Is this you?” Dillon asked, pointing to one of the men on the video, according to investigation transcripts. Schwinkendorf said it was. The other two suspects had come to his house for a barbecue before they went camping, he said. “We had been drinking quite a bit,” Schwinkendorf admitted. He told the detectives that the trio then went to Ash Meadows to shoot rabbits. Schwinkendorf said he had only vague recollections of being at Devils Hole, though he remembered vomiting; his friends had teased him about it.
Schwinkendorf identified his companions — Edgar Reyes, a Las Vegas local, and Trenton Sargent, the skinny-dipper — and gave Dillon their phone numbers.
The next day, Dillon called the other suspects. He first dialed Reyes, who didn’t answer, though he quickly phoned back. Dillon remembers Reyes saying he was scared. “I woke up, and my face is plastered all over everywhere on the internet,” Reyes said. He admitted to the trespass and confirmed that the shotgun belonged to him, but he said that all three of them had been shooting it. “Not long after speaking to him, I got a call from his attorney,” Dillon told me.
But Dillon had yet to reach Sargent. “I was afraid that Schwinkendorf and Reyes would get to Sargent and spook him. I felt like I was running out of time.”
That afternoon, Dillon called Sargent. “He told me that he heard I was looking for him,” Dillon said. “He was very cooperative and forthcoming.” The crime-stoppers tip had gone viral, and in the days since it went public, Sargent told Dillon he had received “hundreds of messages” and even a few death threats. He admitted that he had taken off his clothes and gone swimming in the pool. “I was showing off for my friends,” Sargent said, “and I wanted to see how deep it was.” His demeanor was extremely polite, Dillon remembers, and they spoke on the phone for several minutes.
“Sargent asked me, unprompted, if I had run his criminal history,” Dillon told me.
“I have so much to tell you,” Sargent said to Dillon. “I’m a convicted felon. I know that I can’t have a gun, that I can’t be around guns. I wasn’t intending to shoot that night and was just going to hold the spotlight while the others shot.” There was a pause — a long-enough silence that Dillon thought the phone might have been disconnected. “But because of the drinking, I shot as well,” Sargent told him.
Sargent had been convicted of grand theft of money and property three years earlier in San Bernardino, California. He had struggled with addiction for most of his teenage and early adult years, but since then, he had cleaned up his life and returned to his hometown, Indian Springs, Nevada. He lived in a trailer and often saw his son Logan, who was then only 1 month old and lived with his in-laws in town.
Sargent later admitted to knowing about the pupfish and their endangered status, but insisted he didn’t mean to harm them. His drunken break-in was a slip, he said, a momentary lapse of judgment.
Underwater researchers surface in Brown’s Room, one of the rooms of Devils Hole, deep within the earth in Death Valley National Park.
TRENT SARGENT’S SWIM was just the most recent threat to the existence of the Devils Hole pupfish. Back in the late 1960s, after the National Park Service began its first studies and population counts, the Cappaerts, a ranching family in Pahrump, decided to dig a number of wells on their 12,000-acre ranch just a few miles from Devils Hole.
When the Cappaerts began pumping, the water level in Devils Hole dropped, exposing large parts of the algae shelf. That exposure, the Park Service argued, decreased algae production and limited the pupfish’s spawning area, which in turn reduced its chance to survive. The aquifer level lowered so drastically that it alarmed not only Park Service staff, but also the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Nevada Department of Wildlife. The park’s staff ordered the Cappaerts to stop pumping.
The Cappaerts said they had spent a lot of money drilling the wells and changing their farming operation, and that they intended to go right on pumping without limitation under “Absolute Dominion,” also known as the “English Rule,” a 19th century common-law doctrine adopted by some U.S. states that allowed landowners to use as much groundwater as they pleased. (Nevada had actually abandoned Absolute Dominion in favor of prior appropriation for both surface and groundwater decades earlier.) The Park Service argued that the special status of Devils Hole pupfish under the Endangered Species Act and its habitat’s status as a national monument trumped the Cappaerts’ rights to the water.
The Cappaert case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, testing the power of the Antiquities Act and the weight of the new Endangered Species Act. In 1976, the High Court affirmed the federal government’s right to maintain water levels sufficient to support the pupfish, even at the expense of water rights held by nearby ranchers.
“There are two endangered species here: the pupfish and the American rancher.”
The decision enraged the residents of Nye County. The attorney representing the Cappaerts argued, “There are two endangered species here: the pupfish and the American rancher,” and said the federal government had chosen a fish over the people. A Pahrump newspaper editor even threatened to throw the pesticide Rotenone into the sunken cave to “make the pupfish a moot point.” The community split into factions, and anger pervaded the air. Warring bumper stickers — “KILL THE PUPFISH” and “SAVE THE PUPFISH” — were plastered on cars, street signs and office buildings across the Southwest.
A 1960s bumper sticker against the preservation of pupfish and their habitat.
But the decision has stood the test of time. In the late 1970s, the Cappaert family sold their ranch. The land has since changed hands a number of times, eventually becoming the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Had that case gone any differently, had the Park Service not decided that part of its mandate was to protect the species and stop the Cappaerts from pumping — had Truman not designated Devils Hole a national monument in the first place — the Devils Hole pupfish might now be extinct, though Pahrump would probably be a little greener. “If it weren’t for that decision, the Amargosa Valley would have been pumped dry a long time ago,” Wilson, the biologist, told me recently. “There would be no Death Valley, no Devils Hole, no Devils Hole pupfish — but there would be a whole lot more golf courses, I bet.”
The Devils Hole pupfish, a tiny species that has survived such obstacles, represents a paradox for Wilson, who would not live in Pahrump were it not for Devils Hole. He told me that adjusting to a life in the gravel-covered, billboard-lined city was difficult for him and his wife, a Canadian, who, after a few years in Nevada, finally found her niche in, of all things, golf. “I do wish I could just pick up and move Devils Hole and put it somewhere with a higher standard of living,” Wilson told me. “But it’s worth protecting — and worth punishing people who threaten this little species.
“The most important advances in science have come from the edges of what’s possible — from the most extreme environments,” Wilson said. “We have a lot to learn about how the Devils Hole pupfish has even been able to survive.”
Josh Sargent holds a photograph of his children, Bella and Trent. Trent has his own son, Logan, on his lap.
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News
TRENT SARGENT TURNED HIMSELF IN just after Memorial Day and pleaded guilty to violating the Endangered Species Act, destruction of federal property, and possessing a firearm while a felon. A few days before his October sentencing, he submitted a letter to U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon, who would decide his fate.
“I’m not one to make excuses for what I have done wrong and I’m not going to start now,” he wrote, in all capitalized, slanted script. “I made a stupid mistake. … I’m not a bad person, your honor, and I take full responsibility for my actions and the crimes I committed. … I would like to ask you to accept this letter to you as my verbal ‘handshake’ that upon my release I will complete all stipulations given to me by the courts and you will not see me again in your courtroom.”
On the afternoon of Oct. 25, 2018, Sargent stood quietly beside his lawyer in a Las Vegas courtroom as Judge Gordon handed down his sentence: A total of 12 months and one day — nine months specifically for his violation of the Endangered Species Act — in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Once he is released from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center, Sargent must pay nearly $14,000 in restitution to the National Park Service, along with a $1,000 fine. He’s also forbidden to enter federal public lands for the rest of his life.
Four months later, I journeyed to Indian Springs, Nevada, an unincorporated community of fewer than 1,000, where Sargent has lived for most of his life. It’s home to Creech Air Force Base and the Desert Warfare Training Center. I met Sargent’s family at their spacious and warmly lit doublewide manufactured home. There was a chill in the air and a blustery wind, but his mother, Norine, sat outside, watching her grandchildren jump on a trampoline in the yard. Trent’s father, Josh, joined us a few minutes later, home from work at the Nevada National Nuclear Security Site, where he’s been employed as an ironworker for 30 years.
I had assumed that the Sargent family would consider what happened to their son unfair. But I was wrong. In fact, they defended the Endangered Species Act with a conviction that surprised me, and they knew a lot about Devils Hole and the pupfish that swam there. Norine recalled the family taking trips to Devils Hole when Trent was a boy, teaching him about the pupfish. “Trent would just as soon give first aid and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to that little pupfish than have this thing go on and on,” Josh Sargent said. He acknowledged that his son was paying the necessary price for his actions. “He knows about endangered species, and he takes responsibility for what he did.”
“He knows about endangered species, and he takes responsibility for what he did.”
The Sargents’ home was filled with pictures of family, including several of Trent throughout the years. In one, the beaming 12-year-old holds up the first fish he ever caught, a minuscule rainbow trout. But now Trent can’t visit public lands or use a firearm. “Trent grew up hunting and fishing,” Norine said. “And now he’ll never get to go hunting with his dad ever again.”
Had that fateful evening unfolded just slightly differently — had that single pupfish not died — Trent would very likely be sitting in the living room with his family. Sometimes it is a bitter pill for the Sargents to swallow. “I understand the way people feel about the fish,” Josh Sargent said. “But what if someone runs over a cat? Are they going to stop and make sure the cat is alive? No, I don’t think so. They’re just going to keep on truckin’. But Trent kills a fish — and certainly not intentionally, and he’s in prison. … We’re not trying to defend him; the Sargent family is deeply sorry for what happened.”
Josh and Norine Sargent, right, pose in their Indian Springs, Nevada, home, filled with Southwestern memorabilia, hunting trophies and family portraits. “Trent grew up hunting and fishing,” Norine said. “And now he’ll never get to go hunting with his dad ever again.”
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News
BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY ENDANGERED SPECIES, society is forced to make difficult choices about which ones to protect, and to what lengths we should go to save them. Climate change has quickened the pace of extinction, and already the number of critically endangered species exceeds our ability to save them all.
The Devils Hole pupfish, serene, obscure and tiny, has survived a very long time in an unkind place, just one drunken night or one jug of poison away from oblivion. It is a wonder, to be sure. But how far do you go to save a species like this? For Wilson and the others at Death Valley National Park, it means surrounding this biological wonder with an impenetrable cage. Biologists occasionally feed the fish and clean out Devils Hole as if it were a giant aquarium. They even have a backup population held in a huge climate-controlled tank nearby, insurance against outright extinction. Protecting the species means harsh punishment for anyone who kills even just one fish, according to Patrick Donnelly of the Center for Biological Diversity, which offered a $10,000 reward for help in identifying the drunken skinny-dipper and his friends. “We desperately wanted justice for this. If they didn’t get the book thrown at them, what’s stopping others from doing whatever they want and eliminating an entire species?”
“Why does this place look like a prison?”
Since the incident, Devils Hole has become an even more formidable fortress. The Park Service capped its towering fences with additional barbed wire. The public can only view the sunken cave from a distance now, more than 20 feet above it. And inside the fenced viewing area are even more cameras, motion sensors and “No Trespassing” signs.
“I hate it,” Wilson told me this winter. “I hear from the public all of the time — ‘Why does this place look like a prison?’ People get really upset that they can’t get a closer look. But it’s just what we have to do — to stop people from doing stupid things.”
The enclosure that protects the extremely rare Devils Hole pupfish. Barbed wire was added after a 2016 incident in which three drunken men broke in, one entering the pool, leading to the death of a fish.
Articles shared tens of thousands of times online have reported that Kenya is planning to introduce the death penalty for convicted wildlife poachers. The articles quote Tourism Minister Najib Balala, who is supposed to have made the announcement during a meeting held on May 10, 2018. However, Balala was not at that meeting, and told AFP there was no such plan. Capital punishment is in theory permitted in Kenya, but the country has an effective ban on carrying out death sentences. No death row prisoner has been executed since 1987.
Kenya, like several other African countries, has seen its elephant and rhino populations decimated by illegal poaching to feed a booming international trade in tusks and horns. Elephant ivory is often carved into ornaments or jewellery and rhino horns are used in traditional Asian medicine, with China representing the biggest market for such goods.
The articles about the supposed death penalty plan began appearing online in May 2018, shortly after the meeting during which Balala was reported to have made the announcement.
Animal poaching is a highly emotive subject, and some articles reporting the announcement have racked up more than 100,000 shares each.
One post published by South African site News360, which we’ve archived here, has been shared online 123,000 times, according to data from social media monitoring site CrowdTangle. Another, published on the website of Joseph Mercola — a controversial alternative medicine practitioner in the United States — has been shared more than 100,000 times. A quick Google search reveals that the death penalty claim has been repeated on a large number of websites.
Existing penalties against convicted poachers have “not been deterrence enough to curb poaching,” the articles quote Balala as saying.
In many of the articles, it’s unclear when or where Balala was supposed to have made his announcement, but the News360 article linked to a similar report from Britain’s Independent news website, dated May 13, 2018.
Screenshot taken on April 11, 2019 of Britain’s Independent news website carrying the ‘death penalty for poachers’ story
That article, in turn, attributed the comments to China’s Xinhua news agency, which published a report from Kenya’s Laikipia County on May 11, 2018, carrying the remarks from Balala.
According to Xinhua, Balala made the comments “during the official launch of the northern white rhino commemorative stamps at Ol Pejeta Conservancy located in Laikipia County on the slopes of Mount Kenya”.
Screenshot taken on April 11, 2019 of the ‘death penalty for poachers’ story on Xinhua’s website
That event was organised by the Postal Corporation of Kenya. However, a post on the organisation’s Facebook Page revealed that Balala was not at the event and was represented by Patrick Omondi, a former director of research monitoring and strategic initiative at the ministry of tourism.
Screenshot taken on April 10, 2019 of a Facebook post by the Postal Corporation of Kenya
Omondi, who is now the biodiversity director at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), told AFP that he had read out a statement on behalf of the minister at the event in Laikipia, and there had been no mention of the death penalty.
“That is misinformation,” Omondi said. “I was the one reading the minister’s statement at the meeting and I can tell you nothing I spoke on behalf of the minister was related to the death penalty for poachers.”
He added: “I think in that meeting one of the local leaders casually said that poachers should be killed but nothing official came from the ministry.”
We asked Omondi if he still had a copy of the speech, but he no longer had access to it.
“It was a long time ago when I was in the minister’s office and since then I have been transferred to KWS. The secretaries at the office have also not been able to get the speech,” he said.
We have asked the ministry if they can provide a copy of the speech, but they have yet to respond to AFP’s request.
But there is no record of any official statement from the Kenyan government announcing a move to introduce the death penalty for convicted poachers.
The Independent, at the time of publication last year, said they had reached out to Kenyan authorities for confirmation of the policy change. The website updated its article on Friday noting AFP’s fact-check and saying they had contacted Kenyan authorities again.
Kenya has no plans to introduce the death penalty for poachers
The KWS biodiversity director added that there was no plan to introduce the death penalty in Kenya as a punishment for poachers.
On March 31, 2018, during the funeral of the world’s last male northern white rhino, Balala had warned poachers they would face stiffer punishments — but made no mention of the death penalty.
“We are going to change our laws, Anybody who is caught with ivory or killing wildlife will be jailed for life. That is what we want to do,” he said. You can see him making the comments in this video:
The tourism minister has been advocating for stiffer punishments for poachers and in a phone interview with AFP on April 11, 2019, he said the current penalties were not proportionate to the damage caused by poachers.
“I have been pushing for harsher punishment because what we currently have does not add up at all. A kilo of ivory costs about $60,000 and the fine for a poacher who caught many kilos of ivory is only about $199,000. If you compare this, it seems to be a mere slap on the wrist,” he said.
“But this does not mean death penalty — that, I assure you, was taken out of context. We can have the fines increased, longer jail terms and ensure that the poachers do not easily get away by paying fines.”
Balala added that though poaching seems to be on the decline in Kenya, campaigns to close down legal markets in Asia and elsewhere needed to be more vigorous.
Poachers convicted of the most serious offences in Kenya can in fact already be handed a life sentence under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act of 2013.
The law sets out the punishments for various convictions, ranging from a minimum fine of one million shillings ($9,909) and/or five years in prison for those dealing in tusks, horns and other “trophies”, to up to 20 million shillings in fines and life behind bars for “endangered or threatened species”.
Kenya’s penal code allows for capital punishment, but in December 2017 the Supreme Court ruled that the mandatory issuing of the death sentence for crimes such as murder, treason and armed robbery was unconstitutional.
In practical terms, there is an effective ban on the death penalty in Kenya: no one has been executed since 1987, and in 2009 the then president Mwai Kibaki commuted the sentences of all those on death row to life imprisonment.
EDIT This post was updated after publication on April 12, 2019 after The Independent
updated their story.
(CNN)Only a skull and a pair of trousers remained after a suspected rhino poacher was killed by an elephant and then eaten by lions in Kruger National Park, South African National Parks said.
The incident happened after the man entered the park Monday with four others to target rhinos, according to a parks service statement.
An elephant “suddenly” attacked the alleged poacher, killing him, and “his accomplices claimed to have carried his body to the road so that passersby could find it in the morning. They then vanished from the Park,” police said.
His family were notified of his death late Tuesday by his fellow poachers, and a search party set out to recover the body. Rangers scoured on foot and police flew over the area, but because of failing light it could not be found.
The search resumed Thursday morning and, with the help of added field rangers, police discovered what was left of his body.
Police say they arrested three men and seized guns following the alleged poacher’s death.
“Indications found at the scene suggested that a pride of lions had devoured the remains leaving only a human skull and a pair of pants,” the statement said.
Glenn Phillips, the managing executive of Kruger National Park, extended his condolences to the man’s family.
“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers and this incident is evidence of that,” he warned. “It is very sad to see the daughters of the deceased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
Three individuals who joined the illegal hunt were arrested Wednesday by the South African Police Service, and officers continue to investigate what happened.
The suspects appeared in Komatipoort Magistrate Court on Friday to face charges of possessing firearms and ammunition without a license, conspiracy to poach and trespassing. A judge remanded them to custody and they will be back in court this week, pending a formal bail application.
The African rhino is targeted for its horn because of the belief among some who practice Eastern medicine that the horn has benefits as an aphrodisiac, making it more valuable than cocaine in parts of the world.
Lions left only the poacher’s skull and a pair of his pants, officials say.
Of special concern is the black rhino, which is considered critically endangered after its population tumbled from about 65,000 to 1970 to 2,400 in 1995, according to Kruger National Park. Conservation efforts have boosted their numbers, and the world’s remaining 5,000 or so black rhinos live predominantly in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
In 2016, there were between 349 and 465 black rhinos living at Kruger and between 6,600 and 7,800 white rhinos, who also suffer from poaching, South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs said.
Kruger is considered an intensive protection zone, and the government employs a range of resources to deter poaching, including aircraft, dogs, special rangers and an environmental crime investigation unit.
Of the 680 poaching and trafficking arrests made in 2016 by the South African Police Service, 417 were in and around Kruger, the department said. In September, the department announced that six men — including two syndicate leaders, two police officers and a former police officer — had been arrested for trafficking in rhino horns.
ILLEGAL DUCK HUNTERS PLEAD GUILTY IN LOUDON COUNTY COURT
LOUDON, Tenn.—Three hunters charged with multiple violations associated with illegal duck hunting pled guilty in Loudon County General Sessions Court today.
Dalton Giles (23) of Philadelphia, Stephen Giles (50) of Loudon and Justin Thompson (30) of Loudon, faced charges of Hunting In a Baited Area, Violation of the Daily Bag Limit of Redhead Ducks (12 over limit), Violation of Gross Limit of Waterfowl (5 over limit), …
PROTECTING OUR WILDLIFE It is a horrifying thought that just during my
lifetime – since the start of the 1970s – well over half of all mammals,
amphibians, reptiles and birds have disappeared from our planet.
Rt Hon Michael Gove MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Habitats have been destroyed through climate change or deforestation, and
vulnerable species hunted to the point of extinction by poachers. Losses
like this can’t go on. We must tread more lightly on the planet, stop
hacking at the roots of the tree of life, and pass on to our children a
healthier, more bountiful, natural world. It’s a vital message, and thanks
to this ‘Protecting our Wildlife’ campaign, it’s one that many more people
will hear in coming months.
In the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan we set out our ambitions –
which will be reinforced in our forthcoming Environment Bill – to protect
and enhance our landscapes and seascapes, and the wildlife that relies upon
them for theirsurvival.
Illegal wildlife trade is worth up to £17bn a year
The plight of endangered species, and tackling the organised criminals who
prey upon them, are a particular priority. In vulnerable communities around
the world, poachers zero in on the rarest animals, trees and plants before
sending their illegal haul across continents to satisfy global demand.
This illegal wildlife trade is both abhorrent and lucrative – thought to be
worth up to £17bn a year – and we are in the forefront of international
efforts to tackle it. At the London Illegal Wildlife Trade conference in
October last year, supported byHRHthe Duke of Cambridge, we welcomed over 70
countries and more than 400 charity and conservation groups, and urged them
to commit to finding new ways to tackle this moral and environmental
scandal.
Cutting ivory trade by a third by 2020
For our part, when our domestic ivory ban comes into force later this year,
it will be one of the toughest in the world – ensuring a complete end to
commercial dealing in elephant ivory with only limited and carefully-defined
exemptions. We will use this ban, backed by legislation, as a platform to
lobby for further action to protect iconic species. The newly-created
international Ivory Alliance 2024, which I have the honour of chairing, aims
to cut the poaching of elephants for their ivory by one-third by 2020, and
two-thirds by 2024. Through the IWT Challenge Fund, meanwhile, the UK has
invested £18.5 million in over 60 projects.
Laos commits to total ban on ivory trade
The international community is also playing its part. News that Laos had
committed to a total ban on ivory was one of the highlights of the London
conference. We were also delighted by the announcement that the US will fund
projects to counter wildlife trafficking to the tune of over $90million in
the coming year.
British military taskforce to counter poaching
International co-operation is vital. Building on successful deployments in
Gabon and Malawi, the UK is putting £900,000 of new funding into developing
a British military counter-poaching taskforce. Its members will train
African park rangers in more effective and safer counter-poaching techniques
as they seek to disrupt those who would kill elephants – a magnificent
keystone species – simply for their ivory. Some 65 countries signed up to
the London declaration – an important symbol of international co-operation,
and of our determination to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade. For good.
LAHORE: The Punjab Park and Wildlife Protection Department has decided to crack down on those involved in illegally hunting rare birds and animals in the province.
Two special squads have been formed to take indiscriminate action against poachers. Constituted under the supervision of wildlife officials, each squad will have one an inspector, four watchers and a driver.
The decision was taken a few days after influential people of the Qadirabad area in Gujranwala district illegally hunted wild ducks and harassed wildlife department staff.
Reportedly, wildlife staff caught Danish Azeem Butt, who was previously nominated as honorary district game warden in Gujranwala, illegally hunting ducks at Head Qadirabad Game Reserve. Butt also threatened staff with dire consequences while brandishing a weapon and escaped with the birds he had hunted down.
Punjab Parks and Wildlife Protection Department Director General Sohail Ashraf called an emergency meeting over the weekend. During the meeting, it was decided that special squads will be formed to curb illegal hunting in the province.
Further, it was decided that Lahore Zoo Director Hassan Ali Sukhera will head both the squads. In addition, he will also submit a weekly report to the wildlife director general, detailing the action taken against poachers.
The director general stated that field officials across the province have been directed to cooperate with the squads. “The district wildlife officers and deputy directors will be penalised for incompetence if the squads conduct an operation against those illegally hunting in their area,” he stressed.
In the past, the department’s negligence and its employees were the major causes of illegal hunting of animals and birds in the province.
Every year, the department issues hunting licenses which rake in a revenue of approximately Rs15 million.
The licenses issued by the department allow the hunting of pheasants, houbara bustards, partridges, ducks and Chinkara deer. A large number of national and international hunters regularly participate in the events organised by the department.
Several well-known individuals have been caught hunting illegally during recent months. Former Punjab chief minister Ghulam Mustafa Khar was among them. Meanwhile, close companions of Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar also face illegal hunting charges in Dera Ghazi Khan.
OFFICERS BUST COMMERCIAL KING FISHING VESSEL OUT OF PORT CANAVERAL
The following report highlights some cases the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission handled in Brevard County over the past week but does not include all actions taken by the Division of Law Enforcement.
EDITOR’S NOTE:The following report highlights some cases the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission handled in Brevard County over the past week but does not include all actions taken by the Division of Law Enforcement.
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – While patrolling Port Canaveral, Officer Hallsten contacted a vessel for a resource inspection.
As he approached, one of the subjects ran back to the boat that was at the dock and started throwing fish back into the water. Officer Hallsten announced his presence but the subject continued to throw fish overboard.
A fisheries inspection was completed, and it was found that the subjects were over their vessel limit of mullet. Citations were issued for interference with an FWC officer and over the vessel limit on mullet.
While conducting resource inspections on duck hunters on Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge at Shiloh 3, Officer Eller spoke with several subjects who stated that a group of subjects was hunting the previous morning on a closed hunting day.
Further information was gathered that a group matching their description was also hunting on this day. Officer Eller located the group of subjects and conducted a resource inspection.
It was revealed that the subjects were actively hunting a limited entry quota hunting zone without a quota. Further inspection revealed that one of the subjects had never purchased a Federal Duck Stamp. The subjects were cited accordingly with both state and federal citations.
Officer Eller was at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge conducting resource inspections on waterfowl hunters.
He saw a green Gheenoe returning to the Shiloh 3 boat ramp and recognized the operator as an individual who had been cited for bag limit violations on the refuge previously. Officer Eller asked to see the ducks harvested by the subject.
The subject began to dig to the bottom of the large pile of decoys he had on the bow of his boat and pulled out two canvasbacks and two redheads. Officer Eller noticed that the subject was digging through the decoys as if he was trying to conceal something.
While pulling out the two redheads Officer Eller noticed what appeared to be a third redhead protruding from the bottom of the decoy pile. Officer Eller began to dig through the decoy pile himself and found at the bottom of the pile wrapped in camo burlap two more drake redheads.
This put the subject over his bag limit in redhead ducks. Further inspection revealed that the subject also was illegally hunting the area without a quota permit.
The subject was cited accordingly with both state and federal citations.
Officers Hallsten, Humphrey and Balgo received intelligence about a commercial king fishing vessel making a second trip after catching the daily commercial limit for the day out of Port Canaveral.
The officers located the fishing vessel returning from a second trip and conducted a resource inspection. The inspection revealed that the subject was in possession of 24 kingfish that were caught on the second trip.
The investigation revealed that the trip ticket from the first trip showed 50 kingfish were landed at the wholesaler. A recorded statement was taken, evidence documented, and the fish were sold.
A federal citation was filed with NOAA Fisheries about over the commercial daily bag limit of 50 kingfish. Appropriate citations were issued.
Exposing the Big Game 