This was no ordinary poacher.
Poaching is a crime anywhere that it takes place. We can't condemn these acts enough. However, a man is now in custody after a two year investigation has revealed a history of poaching that may be historical in nature. The poacher in question had a laundry list of animals in his possession that is sickening to even write about.
After it is now all said and down, 50 counts were charged against Shawn O'Conner, a Minnesota poacher after that above mentioned lengthy investigation. In a court of law, O'conner pleaded down to accepting responsibility for 10 of those counts. The rest were dismissed. However, those 10 counts were enough to earn him $10,861 in fines, 90 days in jail, and one year of supervised probation with random searches by the DNR.
As far the details, O'Conner shot a near 600 pound bear. Unnamed individuals then called the DNR stating they had information that he took the bear illegally. From there, an investigation was launched followed by two more years of warrants and evidence being gathered. Eventually, O'connor was charged with the following below. It's a long list that was taken directly from messagemedia.co. Try not to get sick.
Charges
- 1 decomposing bear skull (unregistered)
- 9 additional bear skulls (all unregistered)
- 1 fisher pelt (unregistered)
- 15 bear hides (4 had ID tags, the rest unregistered)
- 1 mountain lion pelt (unregistered)
- 27 deer heads in various stages of decomposition (only 1 was tagged and registered, but the tag belonged to a female who had not hunted during the dates stated on the tag)
- 15 bobcat pelts (unregistered)
- 1 otter pelt (unregistered)
- 1 elk hide (unregistered)
Of the tags that were registered, according to the report, they belonged to people other than O'Conner himself who all testified that they had nothing to do with the taking of those animals.
In our opinion, even though the man in question received a punishment for his crimes, it wasn't nearly enough.
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