Father and son poachers sentenced

PALMER -- A father and his son were fined nearly $27,000 at their Tuesday sentencing for poaching undersize moose on two separate occasions in the Skwentna area and then hiding the evidence.

Robert Snider, 73, was fined $12,500 and an additional $1,000 in restitution, as well as $250 in court costs. He also forfeits his $1,800 Weatherby rifle and loses his hunting privileges for two years.

Jess Snider, 46, was fined $12,000 and an additional $1,000 in restitution, $250 in court costs and he loses his hunting privileges for five years. Palmer Magistrate David Zwink also sentenced him to serve five days in jail.

The men pleaded no contest to taking a sublegal bull moose, illegal possession and transportation, transporting meat without antlers and attempting to tamper with evidence.

Both men said they were "deeply embarrassed and ashamed" for the incidents involving taking the undersize moose just days apart. The son shot his moose near Tow Head Lake Sept. 30, 2000. He said from the distance he believed the moose was legal size, but discovered it wasn't as he came to look at it, and by then it was too late.

Jess Snider was with another hunter about two miles from his father's cabin. A man in the area reported to the Alaska State Troopers that he heard shots and went to investigate. He said he found a moose partially salvaged and covered with brush and trees that looked like they were cut down to cover the carcass.

The elder Snider said he was at his cabin on an unnamed lake playing solitaire on Sept. 21, 2000, when he spotted a moose by the lake. It had been raining all day, he said. When he went out to the porch to look at the moose through the scope, he believed it was the right size so he shot it.

When Snider discovered the moose wasn't legal size, he said he sawed off the antlers, rowed out in a canoe to the middle of the lake and dumped them. Then he proceeded to cut up the moose, but grew tired and called his son, Jess, to come help him.

"It was a dumb thing to do, and even dumber to lie about it," the older man told Zwink.

Jess Snider said he didn't report his illegal moose because he had talked with people who did report theirs. "They were dealt with pretty harshly, and said if they had it to do over again, they never would have turned themselves in."

After wildlife protection officers received a tip from a caller, they searched the Sniders' two airplanes and questioned the men. The elder Snider denied shooting a moose at all. The officer then called Mrs. Snider and she said he had shot a moose.

Defense attorney Eugene Cyrus told the two men not to speak to officers about the case, but to turn over the moose meat and their guns as requested. Snider therefore did not tell the officers where he tossed the antlers.

Wildlife officers theorized that the antlers were in the lake by the Snider cabin. On two occasions in October 2000 officers flew a helicopter and a Cessna into the area with divers and their heavy equipment to search the lake and finally located the antlers, proving the moose was an illegal kill size, Sgt. Mark Agnew testified at the hearing.

The total cost for investigating the two moose kills was nearly $17,000, according to figures provided by officers to Zwink at the sentencing.

Assistant District Attorney Bob Collins asked Zwink to impose stiff fines to send a "message of deterrence for all hunters who fly out to the Susitna area."

Collins brought in a wildlife biologist who testified the moose population in Game Unit 16B is not healthy right now. The population went from 10,000 to 4,000 in recent years, said Department of Fish and Game biologist Herman Griese.

Cyrus argued on the men's behalf that they should not be given too harsh a sentence because the successful businessmen have lived good lives and donated much to charity through the years. Prominent citizens wrote letters on their behalf, including former mayor Tom Fink and state Sen. John Cowdery, R-Anchorage.

Before issuing the sentences, Zwink told Jess Snider he should have been more careful in assessing the size of his moose in light of helping his father cut up his illegally sized moose only days before.

Zwink said the fines he imposed are relative to the cost incurred by the state to investigate the case.