The investigation began with midnight shots, an injured deer and attempts at alarmed premises in the small community of Bridge Lake, BC, to carry out the “arrest of citizens” of a allegedly abandoned bewildered hunter by his friends.
Later, a trace of blood led to a raid on a nearby property where wildlife officers supposedly took the body of a porcospine and two precious bear penises as part of an investigation into the illegal possession of the parts of wildlife dead
The strange sequence of events is explained in a search warrant obtained by CBC, detailing an ongoing investigation of the conservation officers on members of a family of Richmond, BC, suspected of breaking the BC’s wildlife regulations.
“As a conservation officer, I know that the remote areas … suffer a prolific illegal hunt during the forbidden hours,” wrote the conservation officer of BC Joel Kline in the Jury document to obtain an electronic device search warrant associated with the case.
“These illegal activities often lead to conflicts between the offensive parties and the owners/occupants.”
A ‘Arrest of Citizens’
The CBC does not name the suspects in the investigation that have not been accused of any crime. The conservation officers would not comment on the case while it is still under investigation.
The possession of the genitals of the bears, specifically the bone of the penis or the baculum, is illegal in British Columbia if it separates from the skin. The authorities have spent years trying to pierce a prosperous black market for wildlife used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The information swore to obtain the order, presented in the Provincial Court of Richmond, says that the investigation began shortly after midnight on October 3, 2024.
A woman told RCMP “that he heard two shots and that there was a deer in the trench along the 24 highway in Bridge Lake”, a community of approximately 500 in the Caribo of BC, about 150 kilometers north of Kamloop .
“A truck took off,” says the search warrant. “But a man was found on the scene, and people have made a ‘arrest of citizens’.”
Another witness supposedly told researchers that man did not speak English.
“She said her husband” got the suspect to kneel and want the articles in his pocket. The suspect came out on foot, “says the search warrant.
RCMP arrived after the man fled, instead of finding a deer in the ditch, “I live and suffering what seemed to be a torso wound.”
The officers killed the injured animal.
Kline says the witnesses pointed out two different blood paths that led them to believe that they would be more deer or dead nearby. But the paths ended abruptly, since the animals seemed to have taken other places.
“It is common for people dedicated to illegal hunting to use their vehicles to drag the bodies to the road for a faster load,” Kline wrote.
“This allows criminals to load the animal in a vehicle and get out of the location with a greater probability of being not detected.”
‘Numerous wildlife species … illegally killing’
Another resident of the area then told Kline that the truck in the incident sounded similar to one involved in a situation in the previous spring when a black truck stuck; He said he had left the occupants in a nearby ranch located in 106 acres (43 hectares) of land.
The conservation officers took a photo on the property of what they believed was the suspicious vehicle, a black truck registered in a businessman who lives in a $ 8 million house in Richmond with his son and a woman who believes that it is believed that It is your spouse.
“It is the theory of researchers that the [Richmond home] is the family home and what [the ranch] It is a recreational property used by the family, “says the search warrant.
According to the search warrant, the businessman’s name arose in previous complaints that involved the illegal hunting of aquatic birds and the sprinkled remains of an alce.
But no charges were presented in any of the files.
Conservation officers raided the ranch three days after the midnight incident with the morbundos deer, taking advantage of a long list of items that included two penis bones and the remains of a pork.
“Evidence recovered from [acreage] He indicated that numerous wildlife species have been illegally killed and massacred in the property, “says the order.
“Bear Baculum has a high value in medicinal trade and are commonly eliminated from wildlife illegally killing … There is no open season for porcupine, so any harvest is illegal.”
Ten days later, the conservation officers executed a raid order in the family’s Richmond mansion: grab cell phones, rifles and ammunition, as well as frozen deer meat and a “deer head Desolado with a skull lid.”
The raid order presented in Richmond gave Kline the approval to examine the content of the electronic devices.
None of the accusations contained in the search warrant has been proven in court.
