A West Grey man was fined $8,000 and had his licence suspended after he pled guilty to unlawful hunting.
The man from Ayton pleaded guilty to hunting a cow moose without a licence and abandoning the moose, allowing the meat to spoil, in a Thunder Bay court last month.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, last October, a conservation officer inspected a moose hunting group returning to southern Ontario in possession of a cow moose and several unfilled tags on the third day of the moose season.
Shortly after contacting the group, the officer received information that a cow moose had been shot and abandoned in the vicinity of Eayrs Lake, northwest of Thunder Bay.
The investigation led officers to conduct a search warrant at the man's residence in Ayton, where officers learned that he had been hunting for moose near Eayrs Lake and had mistakenly shot two cow moose when the group only had a tag allowing them to harvest one. Rather than reporting his mistake to conservation officers, the man and his hunting party fled the area, allowing the moose to spoil.
He was also required to re-attend the Ontario Hunter Education Program as part of the sentence.
