By PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune
June 25, 2008
A Minnesota hunter faces imprisonment for illegally shooting and
killing a gray wolf in Lake County in 2002.
Steven A. Taylor, 46, of Zimmerman, was found guilty last week in a
bench trial before U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond Erickson in Duluth.
Taylor killed the wolf, a federally protected species at the time,
near Isabella Township in northern Minnesota during a hunting trip in
November 2002.
"People tend to think that they can get away with killing endangered
or threatened wildlife, particularly in remote areas where there are few
witnesses," said Patrick Lund, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service's St. Paul office.
Court testimony indicated that Taylor and his group hunted in that
area near Shamrock Lake on Nov. 20-23, 2002. Witnesses testified that
they heard two shots and asked Taylor whether he got any deer. Taylor
replied that he shot two wolves.
When the species was first listed as endangered in the 1970s, only a
few hundred wolves remained in Minnesota. Recovery efforts have
increased its population and helped assure its survival.
Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the gray
wolf in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, commonly known as the timber
wolf, had been removed from America's list of wildlife species
threatened or endangered with extinction.
Taylor faces a potential maximum penalty of six months imprisonment
and a $25,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 3.
