Behind the Badge - Digital Trails
Digital Trails
District Game Warden Courtney Sprenger
One year during deer season I received a text on my phone from someone concerned about possible poaching.
The reporting party provided a screenshot from a Facebook post of a hunter posing with a large, untagged buck in a farmyard and included the hunter’s name.
A quick search of the Game and Fish license database revealed that there were likely bigger problems than an untagged deer.
The nonresident hunter did not have any North Dakota deer tags.
I found the hunter’s Facebook page, and multiple comments on the post confirmed my suspicion that the hunter was not just posing with a friend’s buck but had in fact harvested it.
Unfortunately, by the time I received the information, the hunter had already returned home, so my investigation was not as simple as driving to the residence to see the deer and conduct an interview.
In my investigation, I obtained a search warrant that allowed me to access the content of the hunter’s Facebook messenger chats for the time period the hunter was in North Dakota.
Like many proud hunters, this hunter was excited to share details of the hunt with friends back home.
The chats contained multiple pictures of the deer and details of the hunt – all very helpful to my investigation.
One specific chat message stood out to me, not for its details regarding the hunt but because it contained a very prescient warning to the hunter.
The hunter had shared several pictures of the deer with this particular friend, who was also obviously an avid hunter and familiar with common hunting regulations.
The friend then sent this message, “Just be careful if you post pictures.
A couple years ago some friends of mine were hunting in Montana.
They posted a picture on Facebook of a really nice buck.
It didn’t have a tag on it yet.
Montana Fish and Game contacted them the following year when they came back to hunt.
The only thing that saved them was that he had all the paper work that the tag was validated and he happen to have another picture on his phone with the tag on the buck.” The hunter then replied, “Yes!!! Don’t share any pics I have sent you” and “I am being very careful.”
I chuckled to myself at the knowledge that my case had begun with one picture that was posted publicly on Facebook.
Certainly not my definition of “being very careful.”
Thanks to the information obtained from the search warrant, my interview with suspect led to a confession and I was able to successfully prosecute the hunter for unlawful taking of a big game animal.