Poachers making a killing in West's oil and gas fields

DENVER — Intense drilling for natural gas and oil in the Rocky Mountain West is triggering a rise in the illegal killing of elk, deer and other "trophy" game because new roads make remote areas accessible in winter, wildlife managers report.

Parts of Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico are flooded with crews working thousands of well sites and drill rigs. The result: more people among wildlife herds.

"The road densities in these areas have quadrupled. And they keep them plowed in winter," says Dave Hays, a warden in southwestern Wyoming for the state Game and Fish Department. "They see all these big game right there, in places where maybe you never see anybody for 30 miles, and they think, 'Why not?'"

Statistics on the illegal killing of game, or poaching, are hard to tally because most states track only prosecutions. Authorities in Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico say wardens are finding more headless carcasses, a sign of killings solely for trophies.

More poaching "is something we have noticed as more and more oil and gas exploration and drilling goes on," says Dan Williams of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. "We're constantly out there, investigating cases."

Poaching occurs year-round in every state, but winter is the most vulnerable time in the interior West. Snow drives herds from higher elevations to once-remote valleys that now are crisscrossed with thousands of miles of roads.

Hays and wardens in other states say the poaching isn't just by energy company workers. Easier road access attracts opportunists seeking trophies for the wall.

Drill-rig worker Joseph Chapman, 36, of Provo, Utah, pleaded guilty this month to felony charges for killing a big-racked mule deer in northwest Colorado last Thanksgiving. Under a proposed plea bargain, he could be fined up to $100,000. He also could lose hunting privileges for a year to life here and in 23 other states that cooperate in tracking and prosecuting poachers.

Hays says the cases wildlife officials investigate are only a fraction of the losses.

"The biggest problem is poaching for economic gain to feed the black market (with) trophy elk and mule deer heads, those kinds of things," says Steve Torbic of the National Wildlife Federation.

Wyoming Game and Fish reports that unlicensed hunting and fishing infractions in 2005 doubled to more than 880 from a decade earlier. Big-game violations were up 58 percent, with most of the growth during the recent oil-and-gas boom.

Wardens are trying to fight back: