There was little chance for witnesses on a remote island off Alaska’s southern coast. The hunters traveled there by boat, strapping on backcountry skis to reach the bear den. But a motion-activated camera, being used for wildlife research, captured the hunters’ actions on the island, officials said.
On Tuesday, after pleading guilty to various poaching charges, Andrew Renner, 41, from Wasilla, Alaska, was sentenced to three months in jail and barred from hunting for a decade, said state Assistant Attorney General Aaron Peterson, who prosecuted the case. His son, Owen Renner, 18, received a 30-day suspended sentence and was required to perform community service.
Based on state law, killing a mother bear or bear cubs is a crime. But Peterson said that defendants in poaching cases rarely get jail time. That’s because hunters often argue that they poached an animal by mistake and typically have no criminal record, he said.
In the case of the Renners, however, Peterson said that he felt the crime was so egregious that he asked for jail time.
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“What they did in this case was shoot two newborn bear cubs who couldn’t escape,” he said. “They had no way of getting out of that den. They were completely at the mercy of the Renners.”
Based on the camera footage, which was summarized by prosecutors in a news release, Renner and his son approached the den on Esther Island, in Prince William Sound, on April 14. Owen Renner fatally shot the sleeping mother bear with a rifle, prosecutors said, causing the cubs to start shrieking inside the den.
Andrew Renner then fatally shot the cubs.
Both the father and the son pleaded guilty to several misdemeanor charges related to the poaching, Peterson said. Andrew Renner also pleaded guilty to falsifying documentation related to the bear killings.
In addition to setting the three-month jail sentence, an Alaska District Court judge fined Andrew Renner $9,000 and ordered that he must forfeit his boat, pickup truck, guns, iPhones and skis, prosecutors said. Owen Renner’s hunting license will be suspended for two years.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.