Two men contracted to kill wolves in a state predator-control program near McGrath have been slapped with numerous criminal charges that accuse them of shooting the animals from their planes outside the prescribed area, according to court papers.

David Haeg, 38, of Soldotna, and Tony Zellers, 41, of Eagle River, each face five counts of shooting wolves from a plane, two counts of unlawful possession of game, and one count of lying about where they shot the wolves.

Haeg, owner and operator of Trophy Lake Lodge, is also charged with two counts of trapping in closed season and one count of failure to salvage game.

Each charge against them is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine.

According to Alaska State Troopers, Haeg and Zellers last March applied for and were granted a state permit allowing them to kill wolves on the same day the two hunters were airborne in an area near McGrath -- a practice that is usually forbidden under state law.

The tactic, part of a predator-control program approved by the Alaska Board of Game in 2003, was designed to eliminate wolves in a 3,300-square-mile area surrounding McGrath to help the moose population there grow.

But charges say Haeg and Zellers on numerous occasions shot wolves outside the prescribed area -- in one case, as far as 80 miles from the nearest border of the legal hunt zone -- and then falsified paperwork to the state about where the wolves were killed.

Troopers also believe the two men caught wolverines out of season in snares and in one case failed to return to the snares, leaving a salvageable wolf to rot, according to the court papers filed.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, prosecutor Scot Leaders said.

Charging documents say both men admitted to troopers they had killed or wounded nine wolves from their airplane outside the legal hunt zone in March. In all of the cases, Haeg flew the airplane while Zellers shot at the wolves with a shotgun.

The wolves were fired upon as they ran along riverbanks, spread out in trees or stood along a ridge-line near a moose kill, charges say. In some cases, Zellers shot at multiple wolves but missed. In other cases he wounded the animals and had to finish them off when he landed.

Troopers have seized the plane used by the two men. It could be forfeited to the state permanently if they are convicted.  According to airplane ownership records, the aircraft is owned by Haeg.

Prosecutors say Haeg told troopers he lied to the state about where the wolves were killed "because he wanted to be known as a successful participant in the aerial wolf hunt," the court documents say.

Wildlife enforcement trooper Brett Gibbens, who pieced together the case, could not be reached Tuesday. But his supervisor, Lt. Steve Arlow, deputy commander of the Alaska Bureau of Wildlife Enforcement, wrote in the troopers' fall newsletter that Gibbens, a trapper, had a great deal of personal knowledge of the wolf packs around McGrath -- about their pack sizes and coloring.

Gibbens figured out pretty quickly that something was amiss, Arlow wrote. "The area the permit holders (claimed) to be involved in ... and the color phases of wolves they were harvesting did not add up in his mind," Arlow wrote.

Gibbens interviewed the hunters about the type of ammunition they were using and the areas they were working in.

On March 26, while flying in his personal aircraft on his day off, Gibbens found suspicious airplane ski tracks in the snow along with wolf footprints. He followed the wolf tracks over the next few days, which eventually led him to some of the wolf-kill sites. The same airplane ski tracks were found at the sites, charges say.

At one site, "Running wolf tracks ended abruptly with blood and wolf hair in the track, and there were airplane ski tracks and human foot tracks where someone had loaded the wolf into the airplane and taken off again," according to the charges.

"Because of (trooper) Gibbens' expertise in the area of wolf hunting from aircraft and aircraft ski track patterns in snow, he could read the crime scene like a good novel," Arlow wrote.

Haeg and Zellers have been arraigned on the charges and are not in custody, Leaders said. Their next court date is scheduled for Jan. 7, he said.

Update 1/15/05:  Tony Zellers, 41, of Eagle River pleaded no contest in the McGrath District Court to shooting nine wolves outside a prescribed predator control management area near the Interior town of McGrath.

Under a plea agreement, Zellers will spend 12 days in jail, pay a $1,000 fine and pay restitution of $4,500. His state hunting, trapping and guiding privileges also have been suspended until July, and he was placed on five years' probation.

Even though Zellers and pilot David Haeg , 38, of Soldotna were permitted under the state's predator control program, they were acting on their own, said Matt Robus, director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation.

"We do not consider this a part of the McGrath wolf control program," Robus said. "Those permits did not give them any right to do anything like this. ... It would have been a violation of laws anywhere, whether or not they had permits."

Priscilla Feral, president of Darien, Conn.-based Friends of Animals, said the behavior by the program participants illustrates how "abominable the entire program is and how little enforcement there can be to make sure it goes the way the states wants it to."

Feral's group is engaged in a protracted fight with the state over the wolf control program, the first of its kind allowed in Alaska in a decade. The animal rights group has a hearing scheduled in Superior Court later this month in which they will seek to have the program stopped. A similar effort failed in 2003.

Zellers and Haeg had been permitted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to participate in one of four wolf-control programs now under way in the state. Regulations are being finalized involving a fifth program near Tok. All together, the state has set of goal of more than 500 wolves to be killed this winter.

The McGrath program, which was the first one approved, has a goal of eliminating wolves in a 3,300-square-mile area surrounding McGrath. Subsistence hunters have complained for years that wolves and bears are killing too many moose, leaving the town's approximately 370 residents with too little to eat. The remote town is 300 air miles away from the nearest supermarket.

Haeg is scheduled to appear in court in February.

Permittees in the program are not paid but can keep the wolves to sell the pelts. The $4,500 in restitution is for the value of the wolves.

Hunter and pilot teams must fill out an application and get it approved before being issued a permit.  "We do review applications," Robus said.

Zeller and Haeg lost their permits soon after the state became aware that there might be problems. The state also decided to try to check applications more closely. This year, state troopers are conducting background checks on some applicants, Robus said.

State wildlife biologists estimate that Alaska's wolf population is between 8,000 to 11,000. Hunters and trappers on average kill 1,500 a year.  Last year, 144 wolves were killed under the program.

Update 10/1/05:  David Haeg , 39, was also sentenced to 35 days in jail, fined $6,000 and ordered to forfeit his plane to the government. But those and other penalties -- everything but the loss of his license -- have been put on hold by the court pending an appeal, according to Mark Morones, a spokesman for the state Department of Law.

A McGrath jury in July found Haeg guilty of five counts of knowingly taking nine wolves the same day he was airborne, two counts of unlawful possession of illegally taken game, one count of unsworn falsification and one count of trapping wolverines during a closed season.

The total sentence handed down this week was 570 days with 535 suspended and a $19,500 fine with $13,500 suspended, Morones said.

Haeg was also placed on probation for seven years and ordered to pay restitution of $4,500 for the illegally taken wolves. The court said he had to turn over the hides of the animals, the guns used to kill them and the airplane involved -- a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, according to Morones.

In an unrelated case, Haeg's guiding service, Dave Haeg's Alaskan Hunts, was also involved in a fatal hunting accident in August near Anchorage that killed a Pennsylvania man.

According to troopers, Haeg and an assistant took the East Coast client on a bear hunt across Cook Inlet. The Pennsylvania man shot and wounded a bear, troopers said, but did not kill it. Haeg told his assistant to shoot the animal again. But just as the assistant fired, the Pennsylvania man stood up in the path of the bullet. He was shot in the head and died at the scene.  The shooting was deemed an accident and no charges were filed, troopers spokesman Tim DeSpain said.

Reference:

Anchorage Daily News

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Juneau Empire