MCGRATH: David Haeg will appeal, forfeits license.
By TATABOLINE BRANT
Anchorage Daily News
Published: October 1, 2005
A Soldotna big-game guide convicted of illegally killing wolves while
working with the state on a predator control program near McGrath has
been ordered to forfeit his guiding license for five years, officials
said Friday.
David Haeg, 39, was also sentenced to 35 days in jail, fined $6,000
and ordered to forfeit his plane to the government. But those and other
penalties -- everything but the loss of his license -- have been put on
hold by the court pending an appeal, according to Mark Morones, a
spokesman for the state Department of Law.
The sentence, handed down Thursday in McGrath, stems from a March
2004 investigation in the areas of the Swift, Stony and Big rivers. The
Alaska State Troopers found that Haeg killed nine wolves in the area by
shooting them from his aircraft and then falsely reported the location
of the killings to state wildlife officials who had hired him to kill
the animals only within a prescribed zone.
A McGrath jury in July found Haeg guilty of five counts of knowingly
taking nine wolves the same day he was airborne, two counts of unlawful
possession of illegally taken game, one count of unsworn falsification
and one count of trapping wolverines during a closed season.
The total sentence handed down this week was 570 days with 535
suspended and a $19,500 fine with $13,500 suspended, Morones said.
Haeg was also placed on probation for seven years and ordered to pay
restitution of $4,500 for the illegally taken wolves. The court said he
had to turn over the hides of the animals, the guns used to kill them
and the airplane involved -- a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, according to
Morones.
Efforts to contact Haeg on Friday for comment were unsuccessful.
In an unrelated case, Haeg's guiding service, Dave Haeg's Alaskan
Hunts, was also involved in a fatal hunting accident in August near
Anchorage that killed a Pennsylvania man.
According to troopers, Haeg and an assistant took the East Coast
client on a bear hunt across Cook Inlet. The Pennsylvania man shot and
wounded a bear, troopers said, but did not kill it. Haeg told his
assistant to shoot the animal again. But just as the assistant fired,
the Pennsylvania man stood up in the path of the bullet. He was shot in
the head and died at the scene.
The shooting was deemed an accident and no charges were filed,
troopers pokesman Tim DeSpain said Friday.
