SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say two Moses Lake, Wash., men have been fined $3,000 each, ordered to pay nearly $15,000 in damages and put on probation for the killing of a grizzly bear in 2007.
On Monday, 26-year-old Brandon D. Rodeback and 30-year-old Kurtis L. Cox pleaded guilty to charges of transporting the animal. Bears are listed as a threatened species, and transporting the animal protected by federal, state or tribal law is a crime.
Both men’s hunting licenses have been suspended for two years as well, and they need to pass a hunter’s safety course before obtaining a license again.
Federal prosecutors say Rodeback and Cox were hunting near Ione, in Pend Oreille County, on October of 2007 when they encountered a bear and shot it. The men skinned the animal, and took it back to Moses Lake.
