SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) — A 30-year-old Santa Clara man has been fined for poaching a mule deer buck in Grant County.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish in a release this week said Daniel Gomez was ordered to pay $6,000 for the January 2013 poaching of a buck that scored 184 inches and was considered a trophy.
The case was initiated by an anonymous tip to the Operation Game Thief hotline. According to officials, Gomez said he killed the deer in Game Management Unit 16. But several area residents had taken video of the deer alive shortly before Gomez poached it in Game Management Unit 23, where Gomez did not have a valid hunting license.
Conservation officers seized the deer, and matched DNA samples to those from the kill site.
