3 charged with chasing moose, shooting it with arrows from airboat

KNIK — After a pair of complaints, one of which included a video of the incident, Alaska State Troopers have charged three men with running down a moose with an airboat and shooting it with arrows.

According to documents Trooper Ernest Brent filed in court, the first complaint came in at 10:19 p.m., Aug. 10.

The complainant “reported he witnessed three males in an airboat chasing down (and) ‘assassinating a moose’ with a bow and arrow in the Jim Lake/Mud Lake area,” according to Brent’s sworn statement.

Later, on Aug. 13, a second complaint came in, this one with a video and pictures.

Brent tracked the airboat — which bore the name “Critter Gitter” — to its owner, Troy Martin, 46, of Palmer, and found it on Aug. 17 in his driveway on a trailer attached to his pickup. Martin told troopers he’d been out hunting that day with Rob Nash, 48, of Palmer, and Matt Keplinger, 56, of Kodiak.

Martin told troopers he and Nash took a shot at the moose.

“Martin stated he could tell by the way the moose rose up and started limping that one of the arrows had struck the moose; however, it must have went through since he couldn’t see it sticking out,” according to Brent’s account. “Martin stated he couldn’t tell the moose was hobbling as a result of the arrow, only that it wasn’t hobbling before they shot at it.”

Martin told troopers that after the moose was shot they all got back in the airboat and pursued it, stopping several times and shooting seven arrows before the animal was dead in the water. His story shifted slightly as he told it; at first the moose was swimming when that seventh arrow hit it, then later he said it went into the water after it was hit.

Throughout his statement, Brent seems to be examining a couple of different things; whether the animal was wounded before the men chased it in the airboat and whether the airboat’s motor was turned off when the arrows were shot.

Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said that neither point matters much in terms of the charges the three men now face — harassing game with a motor vehicle and possessing unlawfully obtained big game for all three men, and taking big game from a motor vehicle for Nash and Martin.

“It is not legal to chase down a wounded animal with a boat, plane, vehicle, snowmachine etc. Lawful methods and means still apply after an animal is wounded. In some units, in order to shoot from a boat the motor must be turned off and the motion from the motor must cease. There are exceptions that are more restrictive in some areas and more liberal in other areas,” Peters said in an email Thursday afternoon.

The press release and citations describe the actions of the airboat as an attempt to chase and herd the animal. Keplinger told troopers they were trying to prevent it from getting away.

“The intent they had was to prevent him (moose) from getting into the brush where they could potentially lose him,” Brent writes.

At any rate, after troopers talked to them, all three men were handed summonses to appear in court. The airboat, moose meat, compound bows and trailer were seized. All three men and are set to make their first court appearances on Oct. 17.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.