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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019
Halibut poachers sentenced to jail time
Brothers also
receive fi nes,
boat ban
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
Chinook Observer
LONG BEACH, Wash.
— Robert and David Gud-
gell, former fi shing boat
operators for Pacifi c Salmon
Charters, will need to update
their resumes.
At a sentencing hear-
ing on Wednesday in South
District Court, Judge Nancy
McAllister delivered a sting-
ing rebuke to the brothers,
who were recently convicted
of numerous halibut-poach-
ing charges.
“I really hope your selfi sh
actions do not taint the repu-
tation of the other fi shermen
in this area,” McAllister said
before sentencing the Gud-
gells to jail time, hefty fees,
probation and a one-year
ban on being on boats.
At the conclusion of a
two-week trial in late Febru-
ary, Robert Gudgell, 57, was
found guilty of eight counts
of second-degree unlaw-
ful recreational fi shing, a
misdemeanor . David Gud-
gell, 58, was found guilty
of nine counts of second-de-
gree unlawful recreational
fi shing . He was also found
guilty of one count of waste
of fi sh and wildlife, a gross
misdemeanor.
The charges stem from
a Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife inves-
tigation opened in spring
2017 after customers on
a halibut fi shing trip said
the crew caught more than
the limit, stored extra fi sh
in a “livewell,” then cher-
ry-picked the largest fi sh at
the end of the day. They also
alleged the crew dumped
the unwanted fi sh, some
of which were dead, over-
board. An undercover offi -
cer allegedly observed sim-
ilar behavior on a June 2017
trip. {span}Deputy Prose-
cutor Ben Haslam{/span}
asked the court for stiff pen-
alties in part because he did
not believe the defendants
had shown any contrition or
taken responsibility for their
actions.
“We understand this is
their livelihood,” Haslam
said. “They’re gonna have to
fi nd something else to do.”
Defense attorney Nate
Needham called it “a case
Natalie St. John/Chinook Observer
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Lt. Greg
Bush and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Sgt.
Tony Leonetti reviewed records at Pacifi c Salmon Charters in
the Port of Ilwaco.
about catching fi sh and
releasing fi sh.” He said his
clients were actually con-
scientious stewards of their
industry and the environ-
ment who were tripped up
by “gray areas” in the law.
“No one wants to see
dead fi sh released,” Need-
ham said. “It’s not the way
they were raised, it’s not
the way they were brought
up and it’s not the way they
want to be remembered.”
He argued that the laws
did not provide clear enough
rules for situations where
multiple passengers are pull-
ing in fi sh at the same time,
and did not specifi cally
mention livewells. Need-
ham said the Gudgells had
no previous violations, and
were never over limit when
they returned to port.
“Everyone who went
fi shing was licensed,” Need-
ham said. “They fi shed with
the right gear, they fi shed in
the proper place, during the
proper time.”
Needham asked Judge
McAllister not to impose the
boat ban, saying that after
more than 20 years each in
the industry, they had few
other job prospects. He said
the Gudgells would likely
have no way to pay their
fi nes and might end up serv-
ing additional jail time as a
result.
“If the court hands down
a sentence that takes away
their ability to earn a live-
lihood, it will be an irrepa-
rable, almost unrecoverable
circumstance,”
Needham
said. “For these two gen-
tlemen that’s a huge, huge
consequence.”
When it was time to
deliver her sentence, McAl-
lister did not mince words.
“You testifi ed that you
were concerned about the
resources, and I simply do
not believe that is true,” she
said.
During the trial, both
brothers said they came
up with the idea of install-
ing livewells to hold fi sh
because they thought it was
better for the fi sh. McAllis-
ter said she didn’t think the
law had any “gray areas”
where livewells were con-
cerned, and didn’t think they
would have kept the livewell
idea to themselves if it had
actually been good for the
fi shery.
“You knew your tactics
were questionable, and you
knew those tactics would
affect the fi sheries that you
were fi shing in,” McAllister
said. “I’m troubled by the 20
years of experience that you
have in the industry, and that
this is your life, and yet you
would do this to your own
industry.”
McAllister
sentenced
David Gudgell to 55 days
in jail , a $15,000 fi ne, two
years of probation and a
one-year ban on being on
any boat but a ferry . She sen-
tenced Robert Gudgell to 40
days in jail , an $8,000 fi ne,
two years probation and a
boat ban.
The judge agreed to let
the brothers serve up to half
of their time as community
service . However, she said
the service would have to
involve preservation of nat-
ural resources, and would
have to be approved by the
prosecutor’s offi ce. She also
specifi ed that the jail time
was not to be served on
weekends.
“Jail time is to start May
1 ,” McAllister said. “To
coincide with the halibut
season.”
US moves to lift remaining gray wolf protections
By MATTHEW BROWN
and JOHN FLESHER
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. —
Gray wolves in the U.S.
would be stripped of fed-
eral protection and subject
to hunting and trapping in
more states under a proposal
released today that declares
the predators recovered fol-
lowing a decadeslong resto-
ration effort.
The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service wants to revoke
the wolves’ endangered and
threatened species status
and put them under author-
ity of state wildlife agen-
cies across the Lower 48
states. The Associated Press
reported last week that the
proposal was in the works.
Wildlife advocates and
some members of Congress
said the move is prema-
ture because wolves occupy
only a fraction of a histori-
cal range that once stretched
across most of North
America.
But Acting Interior Sec-
retary David Bernhardt
said it was “indisputable”
that wolves had recovered
enough to meet recovery
goals. He said the agency
could now devote more
work to species in greater
need.
Livestock interests, hunt-
ers and offi cials in some
states have wanted the gov-
ernment to make it easier
to kill wolves. The pred-
ators periodically prey on
livestock such as cows and
sheep and have been blamed
for declining numbers of elk,
moose and other big game in
some areas.
“We need to take control
of these wolves,” said Tony
Demboski with the Upper
Peninsula Sportsmen’s Alli-
ance in Michigan, where
there are an estimated 660 of
the animals. “They’re clean-
ing up our deer herd, we’ve
got people scared to go for a
walk in the evenings. We’ve
just got too many wolves.”
Those who want more
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U.S. Forest Service
A female gray wolf and her mate with a pup born in 2017 in
the wilds of Lassen National Forest in Northern California.
wolves in more places say
such fears are overblown.
Wolves very rarely attack
people, and far more live-
stock are killed by other
causes, including coyotes
and disease.
“It doesn’t have to be
either or — we have live-
stock or we have wolves,”
said Kate Dylewsky with the
Animal Welfare Institute.
“Co-existence with wolves
is very possible.”
Trapping, poisoning and
hunting campaigns early last
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ing that returned them to the
endangered list.
In other areas, such as the
Pacifi c Northwest, wildlife
offi cials say they have no
immediate plans for hunting
but could consider it in the
future.
Aside
from Alaska
only three states — Mon-
tana, Idaho and Wyoming
— allow the public to hunt
wolves.
More than 600 were
killed in the northern Rock-
ies states during the most
recent hunting and trapping
seasons.
Court rulings delayed
hunting in the northern
Rockies for years after
wolves reached the gov-
ernment’s benchmark for
recovery in the early 2000s.
Members of the region’s
congressional
delegation
ultimately inserted a provi-
sion into a budget bill that
forced the animals off the
endangered list.
Protections
will
be
retained under today’s pro-
posal for two small popula-
tions of related species —
the Mexican gray wolf in
New Mexico and Arizona
and the red wolf in North
Carolina.
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century exterminated wolves
across most of the Lower 48
states by the 1930s. More
than 6,000 of the animals
now live in portions of nine
states, offi cials say.
A fi nal decision on lift-
ing protections will follow
a public comment period
that begins Friday and runs
through May 14.
Government
offi cials
said their goal was to protect
wolves from extinction, not
return them to everywhere
they were once found.
The Endangered Species
Act is not “a means to keep
species from being hunted in
perpetuity once they’ve met
the threshold of recovery,”
said Gavin Shire, spokes-
man for the Fish and Wild-
life Service.
Environmentalists and
animal advocacy groups
have pledged to challenge
in court any action to ease or
eliminate protections.
Putting gray wolves
under state control would
allow Minnesota, Mich-
igan and Wisconsin to
resume hunting and trapping
blocked by a 2014 court rul-
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