Supplied by the MInistry of Natural Resources and Forestry… NEWS  October 26, 2015

 

Five men have pleaded guilty and been fined a total of $15,000 for their illegal deer hunt.

 

David Coutts, Dale Schoales and Harry Eklund, all of Sault Ste. Marie, and David Aspegren and Juri Siitse, both of Goulais River, were each fined $2,000 for making a false or misleading statement to a conservation officer. In addition, Schoales was fined $2,000 for careless hunting and is not allowed to hunt for the next two years. He must successfully complete the Ontario Hunter Education Course before being eligible to hunt in Ontario again. Aspegren was fined $1,000 for shooting from the road right-of-way and $1,000 for unlawfully using another person’s deer game seal. Eklund was fined $500 for unlawfully enabling someone to use his deer game seal. Siitse was fined $500 for transporting illegally-killed deer.

 

Between November 22 and 25, 2014, conservation officers contacted the men while responding to complaints of unsafe hunting. Upon investigation, conservation officers and a canine unit determined that on November 22, 2014, Coutts dropped off Schoales and Eklund at the juncture of Highway 17A and Villeneuve Road South in Kenora, where they had spotted a deer. Schoales shot three times at a deer with his high-powered rifle, wounding the deer with one of the shots. The shots were taken in the direction of both a residential area and a road about 200 metres away. Schoales and Eklund left the area on foot.

 

On the same day, while driving on Highway 17A with Siitse, Aspegren stopped, got out and, while standing on the south side of the road right-of-way shot an anterless deer located on Dufresne Island.  Aspegren and Siitse did not have an antlerless deer seal for the area and Aspegren attached Eklund’s antlerless deer game hunting seal to the deer. Eklund, not present, had left his additional deer game seal for Aspegren and Siitse to use. Siitse and Aspegren took the unlawfully-taken deer to Perch Bay Resort where the five were staying together. All five men made false and misleading statements to officers over the course of the investigation.

 

Justice of the Peace Roger McCraw heard the case in the Ontario Court of Justice, Kenora, on October 13, 2015.