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| Donald Lee is shown with the sheep in the photo on the left. The photo on the right shows Yukon conservation officer Sean Cox in the same spot, with arrows pointing out natural landmarks that prove the animal was on Canadian soil. Image: Yukon territorial court |
Donald Lee claimed to have killed a Fannin bighorn sheep in Alaska, but an online detective and Yukon wildlife officers proved otherwise.
It seemed like the perfect crime when an Alaskan hunter trekked out into the steep mountains and dropped his prey with a single rifle shot.
The solitary witness was found dead on the rough terrain.
However, Donald Lee's deceit was exposed after forensic work by an astute online sleuth and conservation officers proved that Lee killed a bighorn sheep in Canada, not in the United States, as he had previously argued.
Lee was fined C$8,500 (US$6,700) and banned from hunting in Canada for five years after pleading guilty to an offense under federal wildlife conservation regulations.
"I am sorry for the decisions I made that day," Lee stated in court, according to CBC. "I can't take the animal back to the mountain."
Lee was hunting in the Nation River area of Alaska, near the Yukon border, in 2017. He noticed a Fannin sheep grazing on the mountainside, which was just around 200 meters distant.
What he didn't realize, he later informed the court, was that the animal was in Canada, where he didn't have hunting permission. He claimed that it wasn't until he'd bagged the sheep that it dawned on him.
"I believe I could have called someone to notify the Canadian authorities in some way." Instead, I made some bad mistakes," Lee said in a statement read aloud in court.
Among those considerations was the completion of documentation showing that the kill happened in Alaska. He ate the meat from his kill and took the carcass to a taxidermist, where he hung the curly-horned ungulate.
But it was his decision to post trophy images of the slaughter that proved to be his doom.
Date and geolocation were provided in images posted to a sheep hunting forum. A sharp-eyed user then informed off Yukon conservation officers, who flew by helicopter to the isolated area where Lee was suspected of shooting the sheep.
To prove Lee had committed a crime, the Yukon team painstakingly reconstructed the site, utilizing markers such as unique boulders and scraggly trees.
Lee now has one year to pay the fee and give over the stuffed head, which he was originally ordered to do.
After Lee was sentenced, Noel Sinclair, the crown attorney, told reporters, "I will also argue that the term imposed today should send a strong message to the public about the price." "When unethical hunters are reckless or purposefully ignoring the regulatory restrictions for hunting in the Yukon, they will pay the price."
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