Athol hunter banned from hunting for life

COEUR d’ALENE — A hunter from Athol received a lifetime ban from the sport after illegally slaughtering five deer.

Timothy Herbert, 32, was sentenced to four years supervised probation, $12,400 in fines and had his hunting license taken away for life after he and a friend used vehicle headlights to blind five deer before shooting them in October, according to Idaho Fish and Game.

“It’s an appropriate sentence,” said Dan Hislop, Fish and Game senior officer. “At the same time I’m sad that his four boys are going to have to go with their grandfather or their mother to learn how to hunt. That’s the sad part. Hopefully, it’s enough of a punishment to be a deterrent to others.”

Herbert and his friend Bryan Patrick McNaghten, 26, were arrested Oct. 19, 2008, for felony possession, waste of deer after Fish and Game officers found five deer carcasses, with entrails in tact, and an untagged turkey at Herbert’s home.

A concerned sportsman had called the Citizens Against Poaching hot line to report that Herbert and another adult male had poached some deer over the Oct. 18 weekend.

According to the Fish and Game office, the two had used the headlights of the truck they were driving to blind the deer, all bucks. They had also consumed alcohol at the time of the poaching.

“I hate to take away your hunting privileges but there were five violations that day plus a prior 2007 situation,” First District Judge John Mitchell told Herbert during the June 17 sentencing hearing.

Mitchell ordered Herbert to undergo an alcohol evaluation as part of the sentence. The 2007 infraction was for taking too many animals during the hunting season.

 “I don’t want you drinking for the next four years,” Mitchell said. “You need to get to the bottom of why you did two very bad things.”

Defense attorney Glen Walker could not be reached for comment. Herbert also could not be reached for comment.

“I know what I did was wrong and I have a lot of time to think about it,” court reports quoted Herbert as saying during the hearing. “I know I messed up big time.”

Idaho Fish and Game report fewer than 50 lifetime license suspensions in the state’s history. It is only the second lifetime suspension Hislop has seen in 20 years in North Idaho.

“These deer were taken after legal hunting times, with the illegal use of headlights and while consuming alcohol,” Hislop testified. “They would have had no idea where the bullets were going.”

The Fish and Game department estimated the five bucks would each have bred with 10 does each season.

McNaghten, of Washington state, will have his sentencing hearing later this summer.