February 10, 2012
From 7th Space.com
WASHINGTON - Gregory K. Dupont, 38, of Plaquemine, La ., pleaded
guilty today in United States District Court in Baton Rouge, La .,
to one felony count of illegally guiding out-of-state sport hunters
to unauthorized areas to hunt American alligators (Alligator
mississippiensis) in violation of the Lacey Act, the United States
Endangered Species Act and Louisiana law, the Justice Department
announced.
Sentencing in this case has been scheduled for
June 20, 2012. Dupont was also ordered to surrender custody of
his firearms to pre-trial services.
Gregory K. Dupont was a
licensed alligator hunter, who, in September 2006, guided his
clients to an area which was unapproved, that is an area for which
he did not have the required Convention on International Trade of
Endangered Species (CITES) tags. During this illegal hunt,
Dupont took his clients to a property in Iberville Parish, La .,
where one of his clients killed an American alligator. Dupont
tagged the alligator illegally with a tag for another property. He
did not have tags permitting them to hunt in that area at all.
In 1967, American alligators were listed as an endangered species
because the total population size in the United States reached
drastically low numbers due to severe poaching and overharvesting.
This protected status and of the Lacey Act, the Endangered Species
Act and regulations promulgated by the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service and the state of Louisiana led to the recovery of
the American alligator population, and American alligators were
down-listed to threatened status in 1987. The American
alligator is currently listed on Appendix II of CITES, which is the
only treaty that deals with international trade in protected
species. There are 175 member countries, including the United
States. The success of the American alligator conservation
program in the United States is second only to that of the Bald
Eagle.
Because American alligators remain federally
protected, alligator hunting is regulated by federal and state rules
and regulations, which require, among other things, the tagging of
all harvested alligators. The integrity of the tagging system
is crucial to Louisiana’s alligator management program because it
enables the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to
monitor harvest areas, alligator size and the number of alligators
taken.
This system depends in significant part upon the honesty and
self-regulation of Louisiana’s licensed hunters for its continued
success.
In Louisiana, an allotted number of alligator hide
tags are issued to licensed hunters. Each tag may be used for
one alligator only, and Louisiana law requires alligator hunters to
hunt only on property for which hide tags are issued. The
areas where alligator hunting is permitted are determined on a
yearly basis by wildlife biologists, whose decisions are based on
the need to maintain a healthy alligator population. If
hunters poach alligators from areas for which they do not have tags,
then the integrity of the entire alligator management system is
undermined, thereby threatening Louisiana’s alligator population and
alligator industry, which is a significant component of Louisiana’s
economy.
The case was prosecuted by Shennie Patel and Susan
L. Park of the Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and
Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. The
case was investigated by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries and by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Office
of Law Enforcement.
Contact: Department of Justice Main
Switchboard - 202-514-2000.
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