Catching a band of wildlife killers

How a bounty of digital evidence led to the downfall of one of the nation’s deadliest poaching crews.

Washington State Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Patrick Anderson uses a GPS mapping system in his car. He was part of the state’s investigation into a poaching ring that killed more than 100 animals.

On a frigid black night in December 2016, Officer Tyler Bahrenburg stood in the garage of a rundown home in Longview, Washington, looking for the heads of two poached deer. The faint stench of death hung in the air of the building, a hoarder’s den of tools and refuse. Small drops of blood led out the back door. Bahrenburg, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife game warden with an easygoing attitude, followed the narrow path they made out of the shop. The home’s occupant, 25-year-old Billy Haynes, trailed behind.

The deeper into the yard they went, inching toward a rusting GMC Jimmy wet with rain, the faster Haynes’ breathing became. “I want to go back inside,” he stammered.

Bahrenburg, one of four wardens at Haynes’ house that night, reached the GMC, and that’s when he saw it: a pile of black trash bags, each one bursting with antlers. He stooped and scanned under the vehicle with his flashlight — more bags with antlers. In the bed of the truck, still more. “What is all this?” he said.

Read more here: https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.6/north-wildlife-catching-a-band-of-wildlife-killers