GREAT FALLS — Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks game wardens are investigating the shooting death of a bull moose. The moose was shot and left to waste some time after October 29 in the Sun River Wildlife Management Area near Augusta.
Game warden Per Wolfisberg said, “On the afternoon of the 11th, we had a fella come through the check station here and said he found a dead moose, and it was more or less eaten up by bears. We went up the next day and spent a couple of hours on the kill site. We ended up finding a bullet with a metal detector. And that indicated to us that the moose was, in fact, poached illegally.“
It's always a rare sight to see a moose, especially in the Sun River area - that's why there's only one moose hunting permit allowed per year for this area.
Wolfisberg continued, “For someone to go out and just shoot one and not take anything off of it and completely waste all the meat is unethical behavior. They're taking advantage of a public resource that a lot of people wait a lifetime to go out and hunt one of these critters. I sure hope we can find the person who did it and bring them to justice.”
Game wardens say that wildlife crimes such as this are often solved because of leads from the public and encourage anyone with information to make a report.
Anyone with possible information about the moose is asked to visit the TIP Montana page, or call the FWP violation reporting hotline at 1-800-TIP-MONT.
They may also call Augusta game warden Per Wolfisberg at 406-781-0244.
Callers may be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000.
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