Once they found the victim's remains, they returned to the scene six times to collect evidence. They interviewed witnesses and scoured the crime scene by land and air. They measured tire tracks. They collected samples for DNA testing.   And, they say, they determined who killed a moose they believe was shot illegally inside a national park.

Denali National Park rangers used DNA testing this spring to build the case against Jeff King - the first time in years park officials have turned to such high-tech forensics, said chief ranger Peter Armington. He wouldn't elaborate on why the techniques were used in this case, citing the pending trial.

Other wildlife officials say such thorough investigations - even for misdemeanors - are not the exception. They are the rule. But while the occasional fish and game violator is sentenced to prison time, more common are fines, probation and the seizure of items used to commit the violations, said Stan Pruszenski, special agent in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska. Is it worth it?

"I think it's society that makes that decision," said Ed Espinoza, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab in Ashland, Ore. "The legal system requires you to have a degree of certainty before you prosecute a case. If you're going to punish somebody, you've got to make sure you're right."

King's attorney, Myron Angstman, said the level of scrutiny in the case seems to be in line with that of a typical wildlife investigation - even one involving misdemeanor violations.  "Both state and federal fish and game cases seem to have a greater level of investigation than many of the corresponding (misdemeanor) crimes that do not involve fish and game," Angstman said.

Using DNA to investigate and prosecute wildlife violations is hardly novel. Such evidence started showing up in Alaska courts during the early '90s, and Espinoza's lab has been in business for nearly 20 years.

It's the only one-stop-shop facility of its kind in the world, and because of its caseload, it generally only has time to handle federal cases: The lab's 25 analysts process between 700 and 800 cases each year, examining between 5,000 and 7,000 pieces of evidence, he said.  Services span the forensic gamut, from fingerprinting to ballistics to digital evidence to DNA comparisons.

One of the early cases to be successfully prosecuted in Alaska was in 1993, when meat taken from an illegally killed sheep in Gates of the Arctic National Park was genetically matched to meat taken from a sheep hindquarter at the suspects' camp in the Brooks Range. The guide on the trip, Brad Lee Langvardt, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and forfeited his airplane to the government.

In 1997, game enforcers used DNA evidence as part of their case that two retired game wardens from Alabama wasted meat on a caribou hunt in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The wardens were fined $5,000 each and placed on probation for five years.

Also in 1997, Lisa Orr-Hickey was fined $4,100 and forced to forfeit her hunting privileges for two years after a jury convicted her of killing Dall sheep in a closed area based on DNA evidence that linked meat at her home to remains at the kill site near Eklutna Lake.

Law enforcement efforts focus on areas perceived to have the biggest problems. For example, Denali's north border, which gets significant hunting pressure, is a target for increased hunting patrols and potentially increased scrutiny during an investigation, Armington said. That location is where King's kill allegedly took place. His case is scheduled to go to trial Aug. 18.

The park has 11 law enforcement rangers, with nine in the north district and two in the south district, he said. About three or four wildlife violations are reported each year, with others likely going unseen and unreported across the vast, remote expanses of the park its rangers can't routinely patrol, he said.

Improvements in technology can help law enforcement track down poachers long after a kill in such situations. But the improvements can also work against investigators, said Capt. Burke Waldron, operations commander for the Alaska Wildlife Troopers.

The Garmin Rino two-way radio, for example, has features of a GPS locator that unscrupulous pilot guides could illegally use to signal the location of game to their partners on the ground, Waldron said.

To counter such high-tech hunting gear, wildlife troopers are using higher-quality cameras for better documentation of violations in the field. In the not-too-distant future, Waldron said, he can envision troopers using surveillance drone aircraft to spot wildlife violations, particularly in regard to commercial fisheries.

Trooper investigators have fingerprinted weapons, run ballistics tests on ammunition, cast foot and tire prints and even matched human DNA from discarded cigarette butts while pursuing game crimes, Waldron said.

The cost of running a DNA test on animals is similar to what it costs in a human homicide case, he said. But wildlife cases often involve fewer samples and are cheaper as a result.

Federal game officials sometimes use covert tactics like undercover hunts to nab illegal guiding operations, and staging buys - either on the streets or online - of illegal animal parts.

The increasing arsenal of tools available, and the cost of using them, forces investigators - both state and federal - to look closely at how much investigation is too much in a given case.

Troopers try to focus their energy and resources on wasteful cases and those that have the largest impacts - wanton waste, illegal guiding and same-day airborne hunts are top priorities, Waldron said.

For the feds, the priority is crimes involving commercialization of game products - cases involving things like poached black bear gall bladders or walrus tusks being sold, Pruszenski said.  "We still go through a lot of work," he said. "We have the same rules as the homicide guys do."

In recent court filings, the 2006 winner of the Iditarod asked a federal judge to consider new evidence in the case.

King and his attorney maintain the National Park Service put up new boundary markers along the park’s northeast border, where King is accused of slipping into the park to shoot a young bull last year. The defense is hoping the new evidence proves the area was not clearly marked when the 52-year-old dog musher, who was hunting with his daughter, shot the moose.  “I thought it was significant considering they say the boundary didn’t need to be marked,” King said.  King also claims that dates on the markers show they were put up within days after his trial last month.

The park service won’t confirm they installed new border markers pending the outcome of the case, but a park service spokeswoman said putting up border markers is routine business inside the 6-million-acre park.

The federal government is opposing King’s motion as irrelevant and is arguing that the onus is on individual hunters to know where they are hunting. The government maintains King had other means to determine his location. He could have used maps or a GPS.

It’s unclear when a judge will decide whether King is guilty of the charge. More court filings by both sides are expected in the coming weeks.

However, the judge found King not guilty of illegally operating a motorized vehicle on government land during the hunting trip in September 2007.

King argued during a two-day trial in August that the park did not have properly marked boundaries, but federal Magistrate Judge John D. Roberts, in a 33-page decision released Friday, sided with prosecutors that it was King’s responsibility to know the location of park lands.

“King could have picked up a map that had the sections, townships and ranges on it. He did not have a map of where he had hunted in the past,” reads the decision. “.... King testified that he was willing to gamble that he knew where the boundary was.”

King along with his daughter Cali, who accompanied him on the trip, were the main defense witnesses during the trial. The younger King testified that she had driven the Argo ATV to the kill site on park lands but that she could not recall if her father did as well. The court declined to convict Jeff King as an accomplice to the action of his daughter, who was not charged with a crime.

“It is not enough that the accomplice’s acts in fact assisted or encouraged the person who committed the crime,” reads the complaint. “Here, the aid was given without knowledge of the facts which make the principal’s conduct a crime.”

A date for sentencing has not yet been set. If the conviction stands, King faces up to six months in prison and a fine of $5,000.

King, 52, was found guilty of shooting a bull moose 600 feet inside the park boundary by a federal magistrate on Oct. 24 following a two-day trial. He faced a maximum of six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

With tears running down his face as he addressed Federal Magistrate Judge John D. Roberts near the end of the 4 1/2-hour sentencing hearing at the federal courthouse in Fairbanks, King described himself as “humbled and emotionally spent.”  “I’m ready for it to be over,” King said, his voice cracking. “This has turned my life upside down and has caused me countless nights of sleepless worry. I am deeply embarrassed by it all.”

Prosecutor Stephen Cooper, assistant U.S. district attorney, asked Roberts to impose the maximum penalty on King and send him to jail for what he called “an obstruction of justice.” Cooper contended that King initially lied to rangers about where he shot the moose and then lied under oath during the trial. He also accused King of fabricating evidence related to his use of a GPS.

“There was an element of deliberateness and misleading practiced on the rangers and on the court,” Cooper argued. “Mr. King has lied three times on three occasions — to the rangers in the field, to the rangers when they served a search warrant at his house and to the court. It would be unrealistic if you didn’t take that into account. If he hadn’t lied to rangers in the field, you would have a totally different ball game.”

In his comments to the judge, King denied lying to anyone at any time.  “I have not and will never willingly tell a lie,” he said.

Defense attorney Myron Angstman called Cooper’s recommendation for jail time “preposterous.”  “This is a petty misdemeanor and should be treated as such,” said Angstman, who asked that King be allowed to serve community service in lieu of a fine. “The only way you go to jail if you shoot a moose in Alaska is if you waste a substantial part of it or you are somehow commercially involved in profiting from that moose.”

In the end, Roberts sided with the defense. He said there was not sufficient evidence that King lied under oath and that shooting the moose inside the park boundary was a case of poor judgment, not blatant disregard.

“This is not a case of failing to notch a harvest ticket or taking more than one moose in a season,” Roberts said. “Basically, it’s about taking a moose in a national park.”

King, who has lived in Denali Park for 33 years and runs a mushing tour business in the summer that caters to park tourists, issued this statement following Roberts’ decision.

“The whole thing has been an unpleasant experience, and I’m glad it’s over. There was a silver lining for me in that it reminded me of the community support that rallied around Donna and me after our house fire in 1989. The support of my character came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Iditarod board of directors, the mayor of the Denali Borough and other cherished long time friends. It was humbling to me to have so many good people support my integrity. I made an honest mistake, and I believe the fine was reasonable. I can’t wait to get back on my sled and do what I do best.”

Asked about his feelings toward the park service after the sentencing, King said only, “I know there are a lot of good people over there, and I sure would have rather sat eye-to-eye with them over somebody’s kitchen table and taken care of this than have it turn out the way it did. This got way out of hand.”

Angstman, a dog mushing friend of King’s who owns a private practice in Bethel and has practiced law in Alaska for 34 years, agreed.  “This whole thing is a study in how a petty misdemeanor can be taken to extremely high levels if the federal government desires, which seems to be the case here,” Angstman said. “This is the longest petty misdemeanor I’ve ever been involved with.”

Though he recommended jail time, a higher restitution amount and the revocation of King’s hunting privileges for three years, Cooper accepted the fine handed down by Roberts.  “The judge decides,” he said. “That’s the way it is.”

Though he still didn’t agree with the guilty verdict issued by Roberts in October, Angstman said he was happy with the outcome given Cooper’s recommendation.  “There was a lot worse that could have happened,” Angstman said.

King planned to pay the entire $4,750 penalty to avoid a 12-month probation period meant to ensure payment, Angstman said.

Read the judges rulling by clicking on this case.