La Ronge men fined for killing woodland caribou

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Chased for 13 kilometers. Wow:sok2

https://larongenow.com/2023/02/14/la-ronge-men-fined-18600-for-killing-woodland-caribou/

La Ronge men fined $18,600 for killing woodland caribou
Feb 14, 2023 | 9:59 AM

The last of three men charged for their involvement in illegally chasing and killing a woodland caribou on a northern lake last spring was recently sentenced in La Ronge Provincial Court.

Fines for the three were significant, totalling $18,600.

Zane Layman pleaded guilty in La Ronge Provincial Court on Jan. 9 to unlawful hunting and using a vehicle to chase wildlife. He was fined $14,000 and banned from hunting for four years.

Two other La Ronge men, Carter Cossette and Robin Louis Jr., had their cases resolved on July 21, 2022. Cossette pleaded guilty in La Ronge Provincial Court to unlawfully chasing wildlife with a vehicle and received a reduced fine of $1,800. Louis did not appear and was found guilty of the same offence and fined $2,800, the voluntary fine amount on the ticket.
Both men also received one-year hunting suspensions.

On April 28, 2022, La Ronge conservation officers received independent reports a caribou had been unlawfully killed the day before on Russell Lake, approximately 450 kilometres north of La Ronge. The investigation pointed to the violations being committed by employees of a local drilling company, who had been working in the area behind the Key Lake mine site gates that day. The company is owned by Zane Layman.

On May 5, officers interviewed employees Cossette and Louis, who provided statements. Cellphone video and photos obtained from the pair showed two woodland caribou being chased by three snowmobilers for approximately 13 kilometres. The footage also showed one animal falling through the ice, recovering, then being chased to exhaustion.

One of the snowmobilers, later established to be Layman, then killed the animal with a knife. On May 9, 2022, officers executed a search warrant for Layman’s residence in the resort subdivision of Napatak south of La Ronge and collected additional evidence, including knives, clothing, equipment and electronic devices.
The boreal woodland caribou is a federally-listed threatened species under the Species at Risk Act. Over the last five years, Saskatchewan’s woodland caribou program, with funding contributions from Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, has invested approximately $6 million in woodland caribou conservation.
 
Agreed. And I probably should have put this in the News Digest since it's certainly not hunting but I thought it might garner more interest here.
 
Very disappointed in the fines and suspensions, way too lenient. Should have confiscated all the snowmobiles and taken away hunting privileges for 10 years min.
 
Those fines are not high enough. 18,500 is like a single nice snow mobile. They should also lose their snow mobiles, and the trucks they moved them around in. All machines used in the poaching should be taken from them along side the fines. We are far to lenient on criminals in this country.
 
Chased 13km on snowmobile to exhaustion then killed with a knife...wow

That'd make for some tender meat, for sure! LOL! Morons....

Am surprised, that on top of all that, they didn't post the video on Facebook or the like.

Yeah, I too would like to see them lose the equipment they used for the supposed 'hunt'.
 
WOW! The pieces is �� should never be allowed to hunt ever. They should lose everything. Maggots.
 
I’m not surprised by the poachers actions or the low fines doled out.
I am surprised that we’ve spent 6 million tax payer dollars on studying the caribou situation in Saskatchewan. I did a little google search and can’t find one actionable item undertaken. No wolf culling, road reclamations etc. How is putting words on paper going to help caribou? Who has this money now?
The caribou are on their own imo. There is millions of acres of unmolested caribou habitat in Saskatchewan.
I did see one cow licking salt off the hiway last summer, first one in decades.
 
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Very disappointed in the fines and suspensions, way too lenient. Should have confiscated all the snowmobiles and taken away hunting privileges for 10 years min.

These guys are already poaching, banning their hunting privileges for a long time will just ensure they continue hunting illegally.

I agree they should hit them where it hurts though - confiscate whatever they used: Snow machines for sure, truck if they used a truck to get the snow machines to a trailhead, trailer if they've got one of those for the snow machines...
 
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