CLEARWATER — For state Fish and Wildlife Officer Brian Fairbanks, it was the worst case of elk poaching he has seen in four years of working on the Olympic Peninsula’s West End.
“This is a first for me to this extent,” Fairbanks said Sunday, reporting four mature cow elk shot dead. “I have never seen this extent of waste.”
The elk were found this past Tuesday after receiving a tip Monday night.
Fairbanks recovered a slug from one of the carcasses, and the investigation into the incident was ongoing Sunday.
The carcasses, possibly pregnant with calves, were found in the vicinity of an open field on state Department of Natural Resources land south of Olympic Correction Center in Clearwater-Queets and about 2½ miles east U.S. of Highway 101 near what is known as the Mainline Road.
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The rest of the story appears in Monday’s Peninsula Daily News.