PA Conservation Officer Busy Arresting Violators of Game Laws
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer (WCO) Rick Finnegan recently completed two cases involving the illegal killing of a tundra swan and a white-tailed deer in Sullivan County.
Jesse Richart, 21, of Forksville, Sullivan County, was cited for illegally killing a tundra swan in March of 2009 in northern Sullivan County.
\”A concerned citizen called me with information that he had been watching a pair of tundra swans at a local pond, but one was now dead,\” WCO Finnegan said. \”I responded, expecting to do a necropsy to determine the cause of death, but it was immediately apparent that the bird was shot with a rifle.
\”A few months later, when interviewing Richart about a deer that he had illegally killed – which cost him and another defendant $900 each, plus the loss of their hunting privileges for three years each – I learned he also may have been the one who shot the tundra swan.\”
After collecting evidence and seizing the rifles from Richart that were suspected to have been used in these poaching cases for ballistics testing, WCO Finnegan received a full written confession from Richart on how he and another – whom he would not identify – had been out spotlighting.
\”The confession detailed that when they saw the swan, Richart shot it from the vehicle,\” Finnegan said. Several citations were filed in which Richart pled guilty to all charges, which will cost him $600 and he likely lose his hunting privileges for four years, in addition to the three years for the deer last year.
In another case, 25-year-old Thomas J. White Jr., also from Forksville area of Sullivan County, pled guilty to the unlawful possession of a white-tailed deer. White was observed with a dead deer in the back of his truck, which he proceeded to dump in a nearby field. Field Forensics testing proved that
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