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OK, people, listen up. Here we go. This is Nature's
Secret Service, the podcast that puts you in
the room with the men and women of wildlife law
enforcement. I'm your host, Ed Newcomer, and
today our guest is former Fish and Wildlife Special
Agent Steve Stowinski coming to us from his home
in Wyoming. Steve has a lot of prior experience
as a wildlife law enforcement officer. having
worked for the states of both Wisconsin and Utah.
As an agent with US Fish and Wildlife Service,
he spent time assigned to duty stations in Colorado,
Wisconsin, Alaska, and Wyoming. Steve, welcome
to the show. I appreciate you being on. It's
great to have you. Thank you, Ed. Good to see
you again. Hey, listen. I know you served in
the US Army for a while before you went to college.
You were airborne, right? No, they didn't. I
didn't sign up that long. What was your what
did you do in the army? My job was a combat engineer.
So, okay, mine demolitions and things like that.
Very cool, very cool. But after after your service,
you went to Southern Illinois University, where
I think you actually designed your own major,
isn't that right? That's correct. I started there
in forestry and quickly learned that was the
study of growing and cutting trees down. And
they had convinced me to take that major, but
my goal all along was to be a game warden, a
wildlife officer. And I realized that wasn't
the best academic vehicle for it. So luckily
I had a professor who was my counselor in forestry
and he had worked for the refuge system for the
Fish and Wildlife Service. And I told him what
I wanted to do. And he suggested that I probably
should switch degrees and go into wildlife management
or criminal justice. And I'm like, I want it
to be a game warden. A biologist was narrow and
a cop was narrow. And then we came upon this
special major program that Southern Illinois
offered. And with him and the help of two other
professors from wildlife management and criminal
justice. We designed a four -year degree specifically
for conservation officers and we called it conservation
law enforcement. So at graduation it was kind
of lonely. I was the only student in the row
for that program, but it was a neat academic
vehicle because I got to combine the disciplines
of forestry, what I had, criminal justice, wildlife
management, public relations, and then criminal
law. It was a cool degree. That's awesome. And
you know, I think it shows, you know, how committed
you were to this career. Even before you became,
you know, a state officer, even in college, you
were looking to, you know, educate yourself about
how can I get the best education to become the
best wildlife law enforcement officer I can,
which is... That's pretty phenomenal. I teach
here at California State University at Dominguez
Hills, and I teach criminal justice. And I know
it always strikes me that there's, of course,
wildlife crime is just like any other crime.
So criminal justice courses work, but there's
so many unique aspects to being a wildlife law
enforcement officer that a specific major specifically
designed for people that want to pursue that
career is a Pretty valuable thing. Kudos to you
for putting that together. That's pretty cool.
Oh, thanks for saying so. It stuck out when I
applied for jobs, that's for sure. I'll bet.
I'll bet. And is that something that the university
continued after you left? I mean, could other
people go to Southern Illinois University and
pursue that degree? Great question. After I left
and I'd been in the field for, I don't know,
three or four years, I got a call from the Criminal
Justice Department. And they asked me how it
worked out. And I said, fantastic, actually.
And they said, because they, well, let me tell
you this part. When I tried to get the major
set up, the criminal justice folks were kind
of like opposed to me doing this because they
wanted to declare me as their student. Right,
of course. So I went to the dean of the school
that the criminal justice department was housed
in. He was an avid fisherman. And I told him
what I wanted to do. And these guys were roadblocking
me at criminal justice. And he says, I got a
bigger bulldozer than they do, or his exact words.
He says, we're going to add this to the curriculum
here at Southern Illinois. So they did. So it
was added to the school catalog. And when I got
a call three or four years later asking me how
it was going and did it help? Would I change
anything? And when I asked why, he says, because
we've got about 20 students enrolled in that
program. I'm still waiting to meet somebody who
actually did that degree, though. I haven't run
into that person yet. So I always ask people
when I meet them, like when I was working or
even now, where they went to school. I'm always
hoping to find that SIU grad that had the same
degree I did. That is so cool. You'll find them.
Eventually, you'll find them, I'm sure. Maybe
through this podcast, somebody that went through
that program will hear it and reach out to me
and I'll put you guys in touch. That would be
great. That would be cool. I just think that's
awesome. I've often thought about developing,
trying to develop specific courses focusing on
wildlife crime or wildlife criminal procedure
or something similar to that. So you and I need
to talk more offline, right? You spent some time
as a state officer for different states. And
the titles are always different. So as our listeners
know, a lot of our guests on this show are former
special agents with US Fish and Wildlife Service,
so federal agents. But we have had, and we will
have, some state wildlife officers on. And the
easiest way to explain the difference is a state
wildlife officer, whether the title is conservation
officer, wildlife officer, conservation warden,
or game warden, They're basically the state police
for that state that focuses on wildlife crime.
And the easiest way to explain the relationship
between them and the US Fish and Wildlife Service
is to compare it to, say, the state police in
some whatever state with the FBI. It's kind of
the relationship. Is that kind of? jive with
your understanding. I think you got it right
on there. And you were, you worked in Wisconsin
as a state officer for a while. How many years
did you do that? I had six in Utah. I was only
there in Wisconsin for less than a half a year
because I got picked up by the feds. For some
reason, I thought you were Wisconsin first, then
Utah, then the feds, but it was the reverse.
You were Utah, Wisconsin, and then US Fish and
Wildlife hired you, right? That's correct. I
don't know why I had that reversed. It's another
interesting aspect to being a federal agent is
the cutoff age to become a federal agent is 37.
You have to enter the federal academy honor before
your 37th birthday. But at the same time, most
federal law enforcement agencies do not hire
people straight out of college. It's pretty rare.
They want you to have a demonstrated professional
resume before they'll hire you. It ends up kind
of a narrow window. How old were you when you
got hired? I just made it. I was 37, almost 37.
I was right behind you. There was a, I had applied
a couple of times and got told that very thing
that you just said that, you know, get more experience,
but keep applying because it was such a competitive
job. So, um, I was, I just turned 33 when I got
hired. Yeah. So, you know, that's a Like you,
I applied multiple times before I got even an
interview to be a US Fish and Wildlife Service
Special Agent. So you're kind of like biting
your fingernails. Like, oh my gosh, because between
like federal hiring freezes and just the fact
that they don't hire new agents every year, you're
always kind of biting your nails. Like, am I
going to make it, right? Yeah, right. To that
note, you know, one of the first conservation
officers I met in Illinois, I had asked him if
I, you know, what I would have to do to be a
conservation officer. And my mom was in the kitchen.
He was doing an investigation on a taxidermist,
and he came to talk to us about our records.
So my mom's like, my son would love to be a game
warden. What does he have to do? And he looked
at my mom, and he looked at me. I was about 16
or 17. He said, well, ma 'am, do you have any
political connections? And my mom's like, no.
And he looks at me and says, hey, kid, forget
it. You're never going to get that job unless
you've got some politicians helping you. I was
deflated. And after I got out of the army, I'd
gotten a scholarship from the state of Illinois
as a veteran. And I showed it to my dad when
he came home from work and my folks were blue
collar people, you know. didn't go to college
and I showed my dad this letter and he says you're
going to take advantage of this I hope I said
I don't know what I do he goes well you always
want to be a game warden I said well remember
that game warden said you need to know some politicians
and like one in a million people get the job
he got he got mad and he's 55 he got out of his
chair sat next to me on the couch put his arm
around he said you know Every dad thinks this
of their son, I'm sure. You're one in a million.
Why don't you just try and see what happens?
Here I am talking to you. How many years later
is a retired federal game warden? So anybody
who's out there listening, and if they're interested
in this profession, don't let anybody tell you
different. It can be done. So this is fantastic.
Yep. You know what? That is 100 % my experience
as well. I'm not shy about telling people I applied.
I applied four times to be a Fish and Wildlife
Special Agent before I even got an interview.
And yeah, there were there were a lot of people
that were like, you know, you're I was a lawyer
at the time. And they're like, you're a lawyer,
you're not going to be a federal wildlife law
enforcement officer. And I was like, Yeah, I'm
gonna so what I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try my
hardest. You know, you don't you don't give up.
And if something interests you, you just keep
at it until the right people. see your resume
and see the passion that you have for the job,
right? No matter what the job is. And I think
in part two, it just shows that deep commitment
of people like yourself that really want to be
here to do something for the resource. And that's
what, and that's what the resource needs people
to champion them. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, whatever
profession you're in, but in particular, I think
public service, you got to have a passion for
that work if you want to be good at it, you know?
Exactly. And Steve, you and I over our careers,
we work together a lot, just to talk a lot. We,
we share a lot of the same opinions about, you
know, how the job ought to be done and how public
service ought to be done and what it takes to
be a good public servant. I always enjoy talking
to you about it. So, you know, I got to back
up though. I don't know why to this whole army
thing. You told me, you told me once that when
you were in the, I think basic training, you
were like, in the next barracks over from another
future fish and wildlife special agent named
Dirk Hoy. And I think that's what, was that why
I think you were in the airborne? I don't know
why I had that in my head. Dirk was airborne,
wasn't he? He was, I know we had the same job,
combat engineering. Yeah, it was amazing when
Dirk ended up in Idaho when I was here in Wyoming.
And he was helping me with the Grizzly case,
in fact. And we got to talking, because I didn't
get to spend a lot of time with him. But on that
case, we did. And it was unbelievable how parallel
our lives had been to get to where we were at.
And we got to talking about being in the military
and the same job description and the time frame.
And I was like an alpha company. And he was,
I think, a Bravo company, which They do what
Alpha Company started, let's say on January 1st.
Bravo Company started on January 7th. So we're
like a week apart. It was phenomenal that we
were marching up and down the same, you know,
roads and same courses, everything, a week behind
each other. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's amazing.
It's such a, such a weird small world sometimes,
isn't it? Yeah. Okay. Now that, now I'm getting
to the bottom of it because I think I always
assumed Dirk was airborne because he, he was
injured on a parachuting in France. Okay, so
that's how I don't know why maybe I always that's
how the whole anyway. So speaking of grizzly
bears, you brought up grizzly bears, one of the
last places, you know, as a special agent for
Fish and Wildlife Service, you had really interesting
career, you worked in some difficult places,
you worked in some fun places, you were assigned
to Colorado for a while. Wisconsin as an agent,
but you spent a lot of time up in Alaska working
as what we called an you're an agent, but you're
also an agent pilot, which means you were certified
to fly planes for the Fish and Wildlife Service,
which is, you know, invaluable up there in Alaska.
I got to hand it to you. We're not going to talk
about Alaska today, but I was as an agent. One
of the places I never wanted to go was Alaska
because it's the laws up there. regarding Native
Alaskans are so complicated. I just never wanted
to do it. I was admired. Any agent that was willing
to go up there to Alaska and deal with the issues
you guys dealt with was pretty incredible. Your
last duty station, though, was in what Lander,
Wyoming, is now, right? That's right. Yeah, and
that is right in the heart of grizzly bear country.
So today, we're going to talk about grizzly bear
cases, which can be a little bit controversial.
And I want you to fill in the gaps for me here,
I'm going to give a very rough background to
grizzly bears in the US and you fill in the gaps
for me. But basically, just so our listeners
know, the grizzly bear is a bear native to the
United States. It was pretty much found throughout
the Western United States up until the 1900,
you know, turn of century in 1900. Even California
had grizzly bears as far down as the Los Angeles
area early, you know, in the 1800s. But by, you
know, early 1900s, the grizzly bear was almost
what they call extirpated from the lower 48 states.
Of course, there are grizzly bears in Alaska.
And so basically almost extinct or removed from
the lower 48 states. There was only a few pockets
of grizzly bear, wild grizzly bear populations
left. The greater Yellowstone area there and
maybe a few in northern Idaho and Montana. So
they were listed as threatened under the U .S.
Endangered Species Act and then a whole federal
recovery program started and they got federal
protection. At this point, grizzly bears as of
about 2017, I think have met the recovery thresholds
under the US Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines.
But given what has happened with wolves now that
wolves have been delisted and states. Some of
the states have taken over management and have
basically just allowed massive killings of wolves
wanting to take them down to the bear minimum
numbers to keep them from being relisted by the
Fish and Wildlife Service. I think there's a
reluctance to delist the grizzly bear because
they're afraid the states are going to allow
massive hunting of grizzly bears. So for now,
even though they've met you know, recovery threshold
numbers, they're still listed under the Endangered
Species Act as threatened and given federal protection.
Does that about sum it up, Steve, or did I miss
anything? You're much more of a grizzly expert
than I am. No, that was a good summary based
on the Fish and Wildlife Services management
of grizzly bears. And I would add this to it
that roughly if people are wondering, well, how
many bears do we have in the lower 48? It's just
under 2 ,000. And they're in the upper western
states, Idaho, Montana, parts of Washington and
Wyoming. So that's it. And interestingly, when
bears got captured here, like nuisance bears
that got into trouble in town or on livestock,
they're always looking for places to take them
because bears are pretty territorial. I always
thought we should be shipping a few to California
seeing you guys had it on your flag down there.
You guys might want a few representatives of
the species in your state again. I don't know
if that would have gone over very well. Yeah,
you know, I'd be all for it. And believe it or
not, you know, people think of California as
a fairly congested place. But there are parts
of northern and northeastern California that
are extremely remote and very rugged. In fact,
I think there are four wolf packs now that have
naturally migrated into the state and Yeah, northern,
California is perfect habitat for supporting
big big predators without too much human conflict
So, you know, I don't know not might not be impossible.
There's even wolverines show up in California
every once in a while You know it so there's
more to this grizzly bear thing and we'll talk
about it more as we go on It can be controversial
because of course grizzly bears are apex predators
and That greater Yellowstone area has become
more and more populated over the years as grizzly
bear numbers have recovered Human numbers have
increased in that area. There's a lot of you
know homes going up than the you know Jackson
Hole area south of Yellowstone National Park
There's homes in east of the park going up and
as that happens more and more people are having
conflict with these apex predators which sometimes
will prey on domestic animals, particularly agricultural
animals like calves from cattle, cattle and calves,
sheep and lambs, llamas, that type of thing.
And there's always this conflict between particularly
cattle ranch or ranchers in general and apex
predators in these remote areas. So there's a
lot of nuances to this. Steve and I are going
to talk about them today. But let's start off.
We'll get into those issues as we talk, Steve,
because I did do some research on some numbers
that I think will be helpful. But let's talk
specifically about a particular grizzly bear
case you handled called the barber point grizzly
case. You remember that case, right? I do. Was
that one of the last cases you handled as an
agent before you retired? Let me put it this
way. It was the first case I handled when I transferred
to Wyoming. Oh, even better. Yeah, it was just
ongoing for four years to finally get to closure.
As many of our cases do, they can take a while.
There's reasons for that, but most of it is the
defendants involved. It was just, they made it.
It was a challenge. So yeah. Yeah. And so what
a crazy way to get indoctrinated into working
in Wyoming, right? You've got this grizzly bear
case. And when we say grizzly bear case, basically,
because they're listed as threatened under the
Endangered Species Act, they fall within the
jurisdiction of the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It's prohibited to kill them or take them, as
the law defines it. And so anytime that happens,
even if it's in self -defense, a US Fish and
Wildlife Service agent will generally investigate
to determine whether or not the self -defense
was justified or whether or not it was an intentional
take of a protected species, which would be a
crime under the Endangered Species Act. So you
dropped your feet right into the fire on the
Barber Point grizzly bear case. Let's talk about
so so tell us about what what happened. What
was the situation with this bear up at the barber
point area? OK, first of all, I can't understate
the importance that it is to work with state
agencies that have to manage grizzly bears as
well. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, in
particular, an officer there named Brian to bolt
is he was just. a fabulous resource for me to
work with here when I got here. And I think the
world of Brian and I think the public does too
and he has a tough job managing grizzlies in
a western state with a lot of agriculture. And
then the field wardens, Brian was what they call
a large carnivore wildlife game warden. So He
had called me and he said that they had received
a complaint from a married couple who had found
a dead grizzly bear off of the Barber Point Road
up in Dubois. It's still part of Fremont County
where Lander's located. This bear was dead about
120 yards off the road and that's kind of all
we knew. And so Brian and I planned to meet the
complainants up there and they could show us
now. For those who haven't been in this part
of the world, there's a mountain range between
here and the Grand Teton, it's called the Wind
River Mountain Range. And there's a pass that
crosses over to there called Togarty Pass. And
where this bear was killed is probably a couple
miles from this pass that drops down into the
Teton Valley. So this is about 9 ,000 feet that
we're talking. It's in the fall. And this road,
this Barbers Point Road, It's not the kind of
road that you can do 70 on. It's a two track
road that you go about five or 10 miles an hour
on, because it's just a two track road going
through the national forest. And that's, it's
not a, and this, where this road goes, this Barbers
Point Road, it's pretty narrow and wooded and
then some open meadows and stuff. So it's, it's
a two track road in the middle of the national
forest, so. So we had met this married couple
up there who had seen it, and they took us to
it. And interesting about this, the reason they
saw the bear was on what we call a cache. And
a cache is a situation where there's some kind
of dead animal, and the bearers like to hoard
it. So they try to hide it by covering it up
with dirt, leaves, and debris. And this bear
was dead right on top of this cache. you could
see it down from this barbers point road. And
the reason they had went there is because people
in the nearby town called Dubois had been talking
about this bear on this elk carcass that was
there. And people were going up to drive the
road just to see the bear. So this couple went
up there to go see the bear when they got there
was laying dead on top of the cache. You know,
this is interesting because I think a lot of
times Some not a lot of sometimes we think that
the people in Wyoming are anti grizzly bear that
they don't like them But there are a lot of people
in Wyoming who enjoy seeing grizzly bears in
the wild, right? I mean that this bear even though
it was a wild bear it was sitting on this cached
of dead elk and Like you said people were Actively
going up there just to watch it, right? They
were wanted to be wildlife watchers and see this
cool bear doing its thing, right? exactly Okay,
so this couple goes up there to see this bear
and they find out it's dead. So you get called
because it's a potential crime. You don't know
why the bear is dead, but what did you find when
you got up there? So we responded, and when I
say we, it took a village to get this part done.
Let me explain this. When you go into a grizzly
kill site, even if there's a dead bear there,
worse if the bear is wounded. I'll track this
thing down. It's not a job you want to do yourself
and and you describe them as an apex predator
and They don't know that they're sharing the
food chain top with us. They think they're at
the top And it's pretty ominous going through
a willow stand looking for injured grizzly And
it's even ominous going into a site where there's
a dead bear and the reason being Bears will eat
anything, especially in the fall. They have that
hyperphasia period where they just go on a feeding
frenzy. So we didn't go alone. It wasn't just
me or Brian DeBolt. We brought the local warden,
Brian Baker, and then a couple forest service
guys, one in particular, Dirk Schalfant. He was
a ranger for the forest service. So there's four
or five of us that went in to go into this Grizzly
kill site. And the reason is we figured we'd
have to do a field necropsy, which is an autopsy
for animals. And you got to go in there and do
this. And while some people are working on it
with their heads down, paying attention to what
they're doing, you needed other people to stand
guard in case another bear came in and decided
to feed on the cached elk in this case, or even
scavenge the grizzly bear, which they do. So
we wanted to do this crime scene to see if there
was a crime committed. And we didn't know what
people were doing. And I'm sorry to interrupt
you again, but this is just so people understand.
This is basically like a murder investigation.
The bear is dead. You don't know why yet. But
it could be a crime occurred. So the techniques
you're using are really very similar to what
a homicide detective would do. You've got to
do a full crime scene and figure out what happened.
The only difference is, of course, because the
bear is so big, you're going to do the necropsy,
which is an animal autopsy, like you said, out
in the field rather than taking it somewhere,
which is would be a big effort and I do want
to add to this I was on a couple of when I worked
in Africa I was on a couple of crime scenes involving
rhinos and elephants and the same thing is true
there when you go out you maybe have two three
officers doing the crime scene investigation
and then you have probably five or six with you
who were have shotguns or rifles who are basically
protecting you from the predators who are out
there like you know in Africa you might be doing
a crime scene like you said with your head down
there could be lions coming in to feed on this
crime scene that you're trying to process and
that's true in Wyoming Montana as well you might
have another grizzly bear coming in or a black
bear to feed on this elk or this dead bear and
you can't be hovered over it with your head down
or you could become the next victim Now that's
what we had in common with our comrades over
in Africa, you know, can you have souls standing
guard with other predators lurking? Yeah, exactly
So you now you're up there you're gonna do a
crime scene on this stinky dead bear What what
happened? What'd you find out? So we did in fact
find the bear was on top of a cache and it had
It was laying on top and the complaintants found
it and when animals die they bloat in the stomach
starts to get big so the bear actually rolled
off the cache on its side and its legs are sticking
up in the air and What we had found once we did
the necropsy that we did find a bullet hole and
The bullet had entered in through the right side.
Let's see refresh my memory here the bullet had
entered in from the behind the bear on the left
side it traveled through the bear's body and
it stopped on the right side like on the outside
the shoulder but stuck against the skin so it
didn't go all the way through and we were able
to get the bullet with the aid of a metal detector
we knew it had a bullet in it so then we dissected
it got the bullet out and we could tell that
it was a 30 caliber bullet and Okay, then we
could see the bullet path going through it. So
for the purposes of a crime We knew that we had
a dead bear and right now that it was shot. It's
still it It meets the first step. It violates
the Endangered Species Act. It's a grizzly bear
that's protected but there's in some exceptions
to killing a grizzly bear and in defense of oneself
a bear can be killed but my experience doing
these you know, defensive life cases, whether
as a bear, a wolf, not that we had any of those,
or a mountain lion when I was a state guy that
people were afraid of. Most of these animals
are shot head on. They're not shot from behind
like this bear was and then shot from behind
and then traveled through the to the front of
the bear's body and stop on the shoulder. So
we had a bullet. So now we have a crime scene
for sure. We know that this bear was killed and
it wasn't killed in defense of anybody's life
at this point if it was shot from behind. So
didn't add up. So we treated the... the woods
like a crime scene. We spread out and we found
some footprints. We found some tire tracks. We
ended up finding some shell casings in the area,
some ATV tracks going down the hill from Barber
Point Road down to the kill site. And yeah, that's
all we've got. And we collected that evidence
just to see if it would be related later. So
and we had, you know, I got to say this. In all
the years I've done this from the very first
year and you come to a crime scene like that
and you know no Grizzlies are going to come out
and say hey somebody just shot my cousin here
or my mom or anything you don't have family members
to go interview so I've always thought this and
I don't maybe I'm weird, but I always like thought
to myself in my head I wish I was a time traveler
so I could just see what happened here, you know,
yeah or That's not possible. So I think in my
head I hope the game warden gods give us a few
breaks in this case so we can figure out what
happened and You know, you hope that somehow
you can put this together to figure out why this
bear was killed Yeah, you know that is exactly
right. I mean is when a crime like this happens
out in the wilderness There are no animals can't
call you there's no witness among the animal
world who's gonna call you and give you a tip,
right? Yes, these are tough cases to solve and
and and you do have to hope that the adage is
true that God loves game wardens So you have
to hope that something comes up because you you
walk away with pretty good evidence But you know
in the end Steve You got some bullet casings.
You got some tire tracks. You got a bullet fragment
out of the bear. You know what direction the
bear was shot from. But all of that, footprints,
none of that is valuable unless you have something
to compare it to. If you've got tire tracks,
you got to find a car to compare it to. If you
have footprints, you got to find a shoe. If you
have a bullet casing or a bullet, you got to
find a gun. And so now, yeah, you walk away from
your crime scene, you got pretty good stuff.
But now what? What do you do next? you know and
uh it's hunting season it's the fall it's beautiful
in the mountains um fortunately we the forest
service agent that was with us jerk chalfant
very good public relations guy in his community
and he had heard that who killed the elk that
the bears were feeding on there and they took
the usable portions of the elk and left part
of the carcass there, the skin, the hide, and
the rib cage. And the bears were feeding on that.
So we knew who that was. So we tracked this guy
down, thinking, it's not uncommon for people
to hunt over a former kill site for coyotes or
some other predator. And we thought, oh, this
is a good tip. Let's go talk to this guy. So
we tracked this guy down. He was very helpful.
After the interview, didn't suspect that he was
involved. He had an affinity for bears. He had
seen bears on that little carcass. watched him,
took pictures. He said there were a couple different
bears coming in and out of that feed site. And
then one day it was cached, and he hadn't seen
the dead bear yet. So that was a good tip. And
then we go back to praying to the game warden
gods. We don't have any suspects. But moving
this along, the game warden gods did give us
a break. So, Brian Baker, the game warden in
Dubois calls up and says, hey, I just got a call
from a guy. He was in a bar here in Dubois and
this guy named Kelly Grove was in the bar, whooping
it up and talking about this bear up there at
Barbers Point and started bragging about shooting
it. Perfect. He's telling this story. And Kelly
Grove is a colorful character, to say the least.
Every other word is the F -bomb. And he's telling
the spare. And he hates grizzly bears. And he
may let it be known in the bar that he had no
affinity for the bears. And he talked about coming
up on the spare. Told a very detailed story about
how he came up on it while he was elk hunting.
The bear charged him and Bluff charged him. and
he fired four shots with a 300 wind mag and killed
the bear. But he also said prior to that, he
had actually seen the bear on another day, and
him and a friend went up there, and he was bragging
about how they taunted the bear from Barbers
Point Road to get some cool footage of it, like
bluff charging. They were filming wrongs with
the bear, and in that same general area is where
we found these 10 millimeter shell casings. Maybe
he was, you know, and when he was bragging in
the bar, he was talking about, he had a 10 millimeter
with him in case he couldn't kill the bear with
a rifle. Okay. His friends, his friends are like,
Kelly, man, you shouldn't be telling this story
in the bar. There's lots of people around. And
the person who had called the game warden, God
loved this guy. He turned on his recorder and
recorded on his phone and recorded the whole
conversation. Nice. So we got a recorded. Basically
a confession of our confession from Kelly Grove
saying he shot the bear on Barbers Point Road
Interesting, but he was claiming to the he was
bragging to the bar that he bait He was hinting
that he shot it and self -defense sounds like
though, huh? Yeah, he threw that and there were
that story and yeah, but he also wove in how
he taunted this bear and he knew the bears in
the area and of course, he spewed a lot of hate
about Grizzlies and thought the best bear was
a dead bear and kill them all and Now what, you
know, explain that a little bit. So let's get
into the controversy a little. Why do people,
there is a group of people in Wyoming, Montana
and the western states where grizzlies occur.
There are a lot of people who like to go watch
them, take photos of them, see them in the wild,
but there are these people that like have this
weird, intense hatred of grizzlies. Why is that?
Why do people hate grizzlies up there that do?
Having done this for 30 years, and you could
probably say the same thing, you could take any
wildlife species on the planet and you will find
an audience out there who absolutely love these
things to death. And then people who think they
should be eliminated from the landscape. And
wildlife takes it on the chin, whether it's a
black chickadee pecking on someone's log house
trying to get ant eggs out of it. and setting
rat traps on the side of it to kill them or,
you know, elephants for their ivory, you know,
loving things to death. Yeah, that was broad.
Grizzlies are unique in that. I mean, their scientific
name is versus Horowitz. You know, that Horowitz
comes from someone who knew something about having
a pretty bad bear. And that was scary. So I think
that. It's interesting to me that people who
live in Dubois, at least through this investigation,
it was hard to find anybody in and around this
Kelly Grove circle of friends and family that
didn't hate grizzly bears. And I'm like, you
live in one of the most beautiful areas in Wyoming.
It's a Serengeti of wildlife out there, but very
low to no tolerance for grizzly bears. I know
of the majority of the country, the other 47
or six states that don't have grizzly bears.
People travel to this place to vacation, and
the chance to see a grizzly bear is a chance
of a lifetime. Yeah, and they spend a lot of
money in those communities when they come up
there to look for grizzlies to photograph and
to see. And you spelled it out pretty well about
at least the agriculture interests that take
it on the chin. But at the same time, there's
compensation involved in reimbursing. Ranchers
that lose livestock one group you left out in
your description is there are some hunters out
there who absolutely believe that Grizzlies and
wolves were the demise of good hunting opportunities
and big game populations for themselves So some
of those guys out there don't appreciate it and
that part of the hunting community is hard to
understand for me personally because these animals
were recovered because of sportsmen's dollars
buying conservation programs. And they should
be waving that success as hunters as a banner
of success that we brought these animals back
from the brink of extinction. And instead, they
just want to hate them because they didn't get
their elk that year. Having done these investigations
regarding grizzlies and wolves throughout my
career, I've heard a lot of that anti -apex predator
sentiment. and you know we got 360 million people
in our country but we got less than 2 000 bears
and some of these people don't think we should
even have those that's hard for me to wrap my
head around as a conservationist yep me too and
and if you see you know that This argument, for
whatever reason, when this comes up, in my experience,
the anti -predator people, the people who hate
wolves, hate grizzly bears, they completely dismiss
any discussion about the benefits of having these
apex predators in the environment. And when I
say benefits, I mean benefits for healthy elk
and deer populations. They almost refuse to see
the science that it's well proven that the existence
of apex predators actually improves the health
of elk and deer. herds. But they just refuse
to see that. I'm sure you've experienced that
too, where you can tell them that all day long,
that deer and elk populations are better off
now than they were when there were no wolves
and no grizzly bears around, and they just won't
listen. No, and then one of the other things
that's tough too is this, in this case, this
bear was killed on public land. the people of
the United States, the people, not the government,
the people on this land. And as part of that
multiple use mandate for the Forest Service,
it includes, you know, releasing cattle and sheep
into the forest to graze. That often comes at
the expense of people's wildlife, too. And, you
know, sometimes the agricultural community, it
seems to me that the the deck is stacked in their
favor that we've got a whole nother branch of
the government that goes out and removes predators
from the landscape just to protect these domesticated
animals that are turned loose in the wilderness
roaming around on the forest. That's a rub between
the agriculture interest, the recreational interest,
and the, you know, the people who want to just
see a bear for the first time in their lives.
And that's why I think that's where the controversy
gets really heated, because the value that, or
lack of value that people have for a species
is what makes it controversial. But just like
the bears and the landscape, those all belong
to us, the American people, as a whole. And I
had a professor in college call, you know, you
know, when you're going to dump, you know, on
the bears and the wolves, because you don't like
them, you know, and because they're killing your
livestock, you got to be willing to pay a little
ecological rent for using the landscape. And
I always liked that concept. Yeah, exactly. That's
rent. It's rent. Yeah, exactly. It's part of
the cost of being able to graze your your sheep
or cattle on public land and it's part of the
cost of Having the public land available to all
of us. That's that's great. You know, I want
to get back to the barber point case, but I do
want to offer some some statistics here that
are just be a little bit different than the argument
of it's good for the deer and the elk population
and I'm gonna put some of this or at least I'll
put links to it on the naturessecretservice .com
website so people can go look themselves. But
what always shocks me so much is the people that
are anti -predator, anti -bear, they just will
not do the most minimal amount of research to
verify their assumptions or what they've heard
at the local bar or what they've heard at the
local hunting club or whatever about the impact
of... Grizzly bears on either domestic cattle
or livestock or deer and elk population So if
you'll indulge me, I know you'll appreciate this
The first thing is let's just take Wyoming as
an example since that's where you were working
and that's where this case was If you you can
go to the Wyoming is it game and fish is what's
the Wyoming? Game and fish if you go to the Wyoming
game and fish website, you can download the the
number of available elk and deer hunting permits
going back 40 years. I mean, it's publicly available.
A lot of it's on their website. If it's not on
there, you can just ask them and they'll send
it to you. And you can see how many permits have
been issued to hunters to kill deer and elk in
that state. And you can also compare it to, well,
what was the success rate of all the permits
that were issued? How many hunters actually killed
a deer or an elk? And if you look at those numbers
going back 40 years, they've almost changed,
not at all. They fluctuate a little bit year
to year, just based on, because the state sets
its hunting license numbers or quotas based on
deer and elk populations. So they fluctuate a
little bit every year. But on the whole, over
the last 40 years, the number of deer and elk
tags has not changed. significantly, and the
number of killed deer and elk by hunters has
not changed significantly. Just looking at those
numbers alone, there's absolutely no evidence
to support any conclusion that grizzly bears
or wolves or any other predator are hurting hunting
opportunities in Wyoming. There's just no evidence
to that, looking at the state's own numbers.
And then if we want to look at livestock, And
I looked at USDA records before I came here to
record this today. And USDA is the agency you
were talking about. It's a federal agency, but
it spends a lot of time and effort helping to
remove predators from the West, right? It's not
exactly a wildlife friendly agency. It's much
more friendly to agriculture. But they have on
their website, they have records going back 40
years. And if you look, I'm just going to read
some of the numbers and then we'll get back to
the barber point case. If we're just talking
about sheep and lamb losses in Wyoming, only
in Wyoming, in 1985, 40 years ago, they lost
36 ,000 sheep and lambs to all known causes,
to all causes. 0 .8 % of those losses could be
attributed to bears, and it's not grizzly bears,
it's all bears, including black bears. 0 .8%.
If we jump ahead 10 years, 1995, it was 1 .2%.
In 2005, it was 2 .5%. In 2015, it was 0 .9%,
so it dropped back down below 1%. And then in
2024, it was 3 % of all lost. Sheep and lamb
could be attributed to all bears not just grizzly
bears, but all bears Those numbers. Yeah, they've
gone up a little bit, but they're they're shockingly
Minimal compared to all the other causes that
kill you know livestock in the state of Wyoming
and so to be It just strikes me as odd to be
so kind of aggressively focused on predators
as the cause of all problems. When respiratory
illness kills more livestock in Wyoming than
any predator ever does, it's not grizzly bears
that are causing significant losses to ranchers
or hunters. It's just not. And there's no way
you can argue otherwise. You just look at the
data from state and federal agencies does not
support a conclusion that these are having a
significant impact on hunting recreation or Domestic
agriculture. Yeah, I mean anyway, I didn't mean
to get off on a side But I know that some of
our listeners are gonna be like they're gonna
they're gonna hear what we have to say about
this barber point Grizzly and they're gonna say
yeah, but But before they say that in the comments
on the on the website page On the podcast page,
you know, I just ask you please go look at your
own state's data before you before you go down
that road of start saying yeah, but because the
data just doesn't support those conclusions.
Anyway, so back to our friend, Kelly Grove now,
who's made this crazy admission in a bar. What
do you do with this? So this person who made
the recording, I assume they come forward, they
talk to either the Wyoming Game and Fish warden
or you. What do you do with that information?
So he did talk to the local warden there and
he made contact with them. got a copy of the
recording, which we've got. And then I listened
to it intently to transcribe it. So obviously,
we want to talk to Kelly Grove about this now,
now that he's bragged about it. But so we start
doing some background checks on Kelly Grove.
And he's got an extensive criminal history to
not exclude all of his past wildlife violations.
He's a repeat. frequent flyer we call him and
he had been caught by the state of Wyoming participating
in an illegal bighorn sheep hunt and ended up
taking a revocation for that and he had multiple
other violations not to include some other non
-wildlife related convictions. So he'd been through
the system and figured he'd be a tougher interview
but I think you know social media was handy at
this time too. We did a check on his Facebook
page and he posted some things about bears and
other things he had killed. Interestingly for
the state he had posted a picture where he shot
an antelope two days before the antelope season
archery hunt started and he was posing with this
antelope with a rifle. With a rifle. So that
math seemed a little odd. Based on the statements
for, and I should say under Wyoming code, they
have bears listed as a protected species as well.
So the state drafted up a search warrant for
the state trust species of antelope and included
in that things related to the grizzly bear that
we knew about so far. Kelly Grohl said he had
a .30 caliber rifle he shot the bear with. He
bragged about it in a bar. 10 millimeter, we
had telemeter cases, you know, we needed more
evidence and we met the probable cause to get
a search warrant. So we went to interview Kelly.
And this is, this is a search warrant of his
house specifically look for those firearms, right?
Yeah. And any other evidence related to the bear
or the antelope. So, okay. So I am a state investigator,
Scott Browning. He's my counterpart, if you will,
an investigator for the state. And he and I went
to do the interview. And then we had other officers
on hand to do the search. As expected, Kelly
denied and lied about everything we asked him
about. And he made it clear. And it was kind
of a chance for him to grandstand about his hatred
towards bears. He denied even being in the area
of Barber's Point. In the early part of the interview,
he started to recant that and admitted he saw
the bear at Barber's Point three different times.
He admitted throwing rocks at it. He took pictures
and videos of it. He still denied shooting it
now in contrast or in contradiction to the recording
that he was captured on in the bar. He denied
even talking to anybody about a grizzly bear.
But when I asked him if... you know, the investigation
showed that he killed Despair, would he pay restitution
for it? And Kelly said, yeah, I would. Who pays
restitution for a bear they didn't shoot, I guess.
And in the middle of this interview, I should
mention that when we went to do the warrant,
he wasn't home. So we called him before we went
in the house, you know, to have him there on
hand when we did this. So we called him and he
showed up and he had some friends with him. They
had been out. cruising around in the forest and
some of his friends came. And in the middle,
they stayed outside while we did our job. And
then in the middle of that interview, one of
his friends, Matt Brooks, came into the house
and interrupted the interview. And we wondered
why he was allowed in the house or how he got
in so quickly. Yeah, exactly. You're supposed
to have outside security there. Yeah. Shortly
after he left, we found the... the recording
device running on the kitchen counter. He was
recording our interview with Kelly for his own
benefit, which is no kidding. We've got a word
for that suspicious. Yeah. Yeah. So he came,
he came into the house, uh, extensively to use
the bathroom. And then while he was there, he
kind of surreptitiously left a recording device
on the counter to eavesdrop on what you were
saying. Is that it? Yeah, exactly. Crazy. Yeah.
So anyhow, um, Kelly made comments like I know
I didn't pull any triggers on any bears and I
Asked him if he would tell if he was involved
or knew who he was he said no But if I did I'd
shake that person's hand for killing the grizzly
bear. Oh nice Yes, belligerent about that part
of it. So in the search warrant we ended up getting
Kelly's phone Got the rifle the ammo and then
some tele millimeter ammo. We could not find
his pistol Later And that's you had mentioned
10 millimeter early, but you didn't mention that
that 10 millimeter was a pistol ammo, right?
That's correct. Yeah. Okay. So you couldn't find
the 10 millimeter pistol, but you did find a
rifle that the same caliber that would have been
the, I guess, the bullet you found in the bear,
right? It was consistent with at least the caliber
of the bear. Yeah. Whether it was that rifle
or not, we didn't know it without lab testing.
And we made arrangements to have this evidence
process through our lab of the national. Okay.
So, so next step is, you know, next on our list
to talk to is Matt Brooks. We want to know why
he's recording this phone call or this interview.
Exactly. We go talk to him. He admits place in
the recorder. He said he just wants to know what
we're talking about because he thought it had
something to do with a bunch of antelope that
he might've been involved with. So he was scared
and he admitted it was related to that. He denied
any knowledge about Grove shooting a grizzly
bear. And when we asked him if he wanted to help
cooperate in this investigation, tell us why.
He was there with a recorder. He said, no, I
don't want to be involved or help you anymore.
And then it comes down to the evidence. What
did we find as a result of the search warrant?
The cell phone was a treasure trove of information.
And we found a bunch of stuff related to bears,
numerous photos and videos of the bears at Barbers
Point. We were able to firm up that Kelly had
killed the antelope illegally with a rifle in
the close season. We also found pictures of him
setting illegal bear baits for black bear. So
they were black bear hunting as well. Nobody
had the edge for that though, or a permit. bear
baiting permits. So there are other state violations.
There are videos of grizzly bears. We also saw
Matt Brooks and Kelly Grove illegally hunting
and shooting from a highway at other animals.
They were shooting at migratory birds while they
were hunting over baited sites. This was, I know
this is going to seem petty, but this lends to
the psychology of Kelly Grove. He worked on an
oil field, and this offended our US attorney
more than anything. He's running around this
oil field drill site with a tool trying to kill
a rabbit. Oh my gosh. And then with a tool, like
a wrench. And he had some mice in his dwelling
there, I guess the trailer was staying in. So
he was capturing these mice and then him and
another guy were playing baseball with the mice.
Oh my gosh. calling it a home run. And, you know,
it was at their mice, I get it, the rodents,
people kill them. But in the manner and the enjoyment
that he was having, one of the the head U .S.
attorney here in Lander, she found that deeply
disturbing about this guy's mindset that he'd
kill anything and had no regard for anything
living, which wasn't far from the truth. So the
Facebook warrant we got for that and similar.
further evidence just to secure some of the things
he was posting online. Right, right. Yeah, there's
something something about, you know, there's
one thing killing an animal is one thing for
food or hunting purposes, but taking, you know,
a lot of joy out of it, kind of another thing.
It's kind of just weird, right? Yeah, so it linked
itself to like the psychology of killing things.
So yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then the lab results
started coming in. And we found that the bullet
was so smashed that we couldn't get the like
uh fine characteristics from it but we could
tell that it had what we call six lands and grooves
and what that means is in a rifle barrel it's
got rifling is what they call on it and it's
a spiral shape going down the barrel kind of
like when you throw a football through the air
you want to spiral it a bullet does the same
thing if you can get it to spin in the barrel
it's more accurate and the way they do that is
they etch these lands and grooves in there that
make spiraling in there and that leaves an impression
on the bullet just like a fingerprint does on
a glass. So these lands and grooves told us that
there were six lands and six grooves. So there's
six cuts and then six raised areas that went
around the bullet and coincidentally, so did
Kelly Grove's gun and I had to see him rifling.
So that was a class characteristic they call
it, not a specific. So yeah, that's that's that's
so people don't watch too much see it see the
CSI TV shows that what you have is essentially
circumstantial evidence. It's consistent. The
bullet that you found in the bear was consistent
with the gun that Kelly Groves owned, but not
definitive. And that's because the bullet was
so smashed up and damaged, right? Correct. Yeah,
right. That's a good clarification. Yeah. And
also just so listeners know, US Fish and Wildlife
Service has its own forensic crime lab. And that's,
they're the ones that did this analysis for you.
Is that right? That's correct. Okay. Yeah. Very
cool. Okay. All right. So, so good. You got some
circumstantial evidence here. I'm sorry. I didn't
mean to interrupt. Go ahead. That's okay. We
kind of got a miss on the 10 millimeter casings
for one particular reason. We didn't have the
pistol. And we couldn't do any matching with
that. And Kelly said that he had it, and he would
turn it over to us. He just didn't know where
it was at the time of the search. And no surprise,
he said he lost it. And of course, it was never
reported stolen either. But in the course of
going through his phone, we found a bunch of
texts and other things that people he had communicated
with. So we had a whole laundry list of people
we wanted to talk to in and around the Dubois.
Dubois is a small western town. So it was a small
town. So we knew we had to talk to people in
town who might know about this. So we assembled
a group of people, of agents. And in fact, Dirk
Coy, who we talked about earlier, came over.
And he came and helped with this. And anyhow,
we rounded up anybody that was mentioned in and
around this grisly killing in text or phone calls
and things like that. And tried to glean out
more information related to Grove killing this
bear. I re -interviewed Matt Brooks with another
officer. And we found out that Kelly Grove got
booted out of his house after the search warrant,
and he moved in with Matt Brooks. So they started
living together, asked him if they talked about
it. He says, no, we haven't even talked about
the grizzly thing. And I'm like, yeah, sure.
But he said he knows Kelly didn't shoot the bear.
We confronted him with the evidence of other
crimes on Kelly's phone that Matt Brooks was
involved in. And to his credit, he took responsibility
for illegally hunting black bears without a license
over illegal baits. He said that he... I drank
too much and they were driving around shooting
out of the vehicle. He shot his antelope from
a truck. He shot a white tailed deer, all kinds
of other other state related wildlife charges.
And we asked him about Kelly Grove hiding the
gun. He said, you know, Kelly backtracked. He
thought maybe it fell out of the truck somewhere.
So we went into the mountains to go look where
he might have dropped this gun. And he brought
a bunch of us with. And Kelly knew that, you
know, you guys are going to be talking to. other
people in town, so he brought whoever would come
with to help him find his pistol. And Brooks,
his, you know, has his roommate says, yeah, I
was pretty ticked off about that, you know, he
dragged us around. And then like at the end of
it, he made a comment that, you know, we're not
going to find it, he says, but I know ahead of
time, those officers are never going to get their
hands on that gun anyways, which Brooks said
he interpreted that it was hiding somewhere that
only Grove knew about, and we weren't going to
get our hands on it. And at that time, Brooks
had claimed to be a bad liar. That'll be relevant
later, so. This was pretty interesting. One of
Kelly's friends, this is the people who, the
couple that called us about this bear. This one,
the husband, he actually was in the bar when
Kelly was bragging about killing this bear. No
kidding. And it struck me as very odd that him
and his wife would call us about a dead bear.
And then after we had gone and got the bear,
he had heard Kelly Grove bragging about killing
this bear in the bar. And he never called us.
Yeah. And nor did his wife. And she knew about
it as well. So we wanted to re -interview them
to find out, you knew we were investigating this
bear. Why didn't you call us? Well, we were friends
with Kelly Grove. And they actually knew about
the bears being up there on this cache because
Kelly Grove told them about it. So they went
up there to go see the bear. And this is what
they said. When we got there and saw the dead
bear, both of them simultaneously thought to
themselves, Kelly killed this bear. Oh my gosh.
Only to find out later he was bragging in a bar
that he did. So that was his reputation in that
town that he had actually killed this bear. Unbelievable.
Yeah. you know talking to this couple they uh
you know said the reason they didn't want to
come forward is it's a small town and they didn't
want to they're worried about repercussions and
they don't want to be a rat and kelly's a friend
and you know they were just worried about the
upshot of you know being the ones who called
in the first place and now suddenly the friend's
the main suspect so anyhow so yeah wasn't there
like a deal with the some gun being buried in
this case Yeah, I'm coming up on that. Oh, sorry
Yeah, so we enter we I got to tell you this part
because this is we interviewed a few other people
So we had enough at this point to go to the grand
jury Okay For your listeners who don't know what
that is, it's just a place where we go with the
U .S. attorney and there's jurors there. They
hear the government's case and decide if they
have enough to take the case forward or to get,
you know, subpoenas issued to get more evidence.
But they decided after our testimony that Kelly
Grove, you know, there's enough evidence to,
you know, charge Kelly Grove with killing this
grizzly bear. So he was indicted in the grand
jury. OK, for violating the Endangered Species
Act, yeah? That's correct. November of 2017,
like two years after the bear was killed, we
finally finished. I'm not going to go over every
interview we did and waiting, you know, it took
time for all this stuff to come to fruition,
but we invited him in November. He pled not guilty
and his trial was set for February. So that was
about a week before we went to trial. Brian Baker,
the game warden from Du Bois gets a phone call
and it's a woman who is a scorned girlfriend
of Matt Brooks. Oh boy. And so she says that
you guys are investigating the wrong guy. Kelly
Grove didn't shoot the bear. My ex -boyfriend
did. Matt Brooks. Oh, boy. So we're like, oh
great. We're ready to go to trial and Kelly So
we have to determine the you know And we got
such a runaround from so many people involved
in this case We did not want to provide information
to cooperate in the small town and we thought
maybe this was a ruse to like throw a wrench
into the the case so I Traveled up to Montana
with another agent who's assigned Ramona I and
Ellie and she and I interviewed this woman face
to face and her description of what happened.
There's no way she could have known any of this
unless someone told her. The details were staggering
about what had happened once this investigation
launched. To illustrate, she said that she told
us that when I interviewed Matt Brooks a second
time, he and her were living together in a town
called Casper. And he was at work when we interviewed
him, Brian Baker and I. And he was pretty rattled,
and he had gone home after the interview, went
into the bathroom, she said, had her leave her
phone and his phone on the counter because he
felt like Big Brother was using the phones to
listen to what was going on. And you and I laugh
like that's the things people think and that
was, you know, we don't have the ability, but
he was so paranoid that we were eavesdropping
on this. And he went in the bathroom, turned
on the fan and told her that he had done some
really stupid things before they started dating
to include shooting this grizzly bear. And he
described a Kelly girl was with them, how they
did it. She says, well, what are you going to
do? He says, well, they're never going to make
this case stick because they don't have the right
gun. And she's like, well, why not? He goes,
well, I shot it, used my gun, and it's buried
up in the mountains by Dubois there. He goes,
I put it in an oily rag, wrapped it in. plastic
and I buried it. He actually buried it with Kelly
Grove and another guy. She said, and he was so
scared that they were going to rat him out and
tell him where the guns at that he went there
by himself, dug it up and moved it to another
place and buried it again. So this is like his
prized rifle possession. So I mean, things like
this is just, you don't, you don't make that
up. And so, and she said that he wasn't worried
about the other wildlife crimes as much as he
was about the grizzly bear. Now, This informant,
the ex -girlfriend, she was really worried about
coming forward because prior to their breakup,
she was pregnant and miscarried. And the night
before her miscarriage, her and Matt got in a
big fight and he head -butted her, split her
head open and she had to go to the ER on her
own and got sick. Shortly thereafter, of course,
they broke up because of domestic violence. She
went through a DNC to have the dead baby removed
from, you know, that procedure they call that.
And she talked about it, you know, like she needed
to get away from him at that point. He didn't
even show up at the hospital. She went through
this procedure. She went into detail about...
I said, well, how do I know you're not making
this up, or just repeating what you heard? She
says, we had our own code when it came to talking
about this bear around other people. He called
it his boomstick, which meant his rifle, and
then he'd use the digging gesture with a shovel,
you know, like that her and him would use this
little code. And she said she was, I asked her
why she was coming forward. And she said that
she felt that at the time she was too afraid
to stand up to him. And now that they've broken
up, she had a support system around her. And
she knew that Brooks's ex -wife had been beaten
by him. He had told her that. And he was currently
living with someone else. And she was just worried
about him hurting someone else. Plus he felt
like he should be held accountable for killing
this bear. So we go re -interview Brooks. And
he lies, denies everything, says she's crazy.
He did say Grove didn't shoot the bear or kill
the bear. He said he talks to Grove all the time.
And even though Grove had moved out of state
for a job, but they still talked. And one of
the interesting things that Brooks's girlfriend
told us is that when Grove came back in for his
trial that was scheduled, that he had came and
stayed with Brooks in the house there overnight
and that's how she heard this whole story. Okay,
so she knew that so anyhow, I denied conspiring
with girls about the bear and yeah, and But I
asked him about his gun You know because he didn't
know that we knew about his gun, right? So I
asked him where he buried it and you know, you
could tell that that shocked him that is great
for that You don't want us to get this gun and
we're leaning on him enough, you know, he conceded
that he had taken it to a gunsmith and was having
the barrel removed and having the gun changed
to a completely different caliber. Perfect, to
avoid that forensic evidence from the scene,
right? Exactly. Unbelievable. So he worked with
the gunsmith who was helping him do this. So
right after I left that interview, you know where
I went, right to the gunsmith, got my hands on
all of that gun evidence from Brooks. And so
needless to say, we canceled the trial for Kelly
Grove because he didn't actually shoot it, but
he was involved, according to the ex -girlfriend.
So what happens? How'd you wrap this up? What
were the final charges on everybody, and what
was the outcome? So target letters went out.
And obviously, Grove and Brooks knew that the
gig was up, so they entered into pleas. Grove
ended up pleading guilty to harassing a grizzly
bear, and the investigation showed that he did
in fact shoot his 10 millimeter in the direction
of the bear. So he's harassing a threatened species,
which is the same penalty as shooting it, surprise.
He got five years of unsupervised probation.
a five -year global hunting revocation through
the wildlife violator compact. He was not fined,
but he had to pay $7 ,000 in restitution for
all the wildlife damage, and he was sentenced
in July. But as part of his plea, we wanted him
to do a post -conviction interview so he could
mull down all the facts of that particular case,
plus use them against Brooks if necessary. Right.
Brooks got a target letter and same for him.
He knew the gig was up. He ended up entering
a plea agreement to plead guilty for shooting
the bear. Five years probation, 200 hours of
community service, a four year worldwide hunting
ban, $20 ,000 in restitution, no fine, forfeit
the rifle. And he also did a post. Okay, so you
know this is actually a pretty good penalty because
You know, it's always shocking to people when
you tell them that the Endangered Species Act,
the maximum penalty under that is a class A misdemeanor.
And that's with regard to endangered species.
If it's a threatened species, it's a class B
misdemeanor. So no matter what, even if it's
a class A misdemeanor, the maximum penalty is
one year in jail and $100 ,000 fine. So this
penalty is actually pretty good. The other interesting
thing that you mentioned is harassment, which
is just causing, you know, interfering with breeding,
feeding or sheltering of an endangered or threatened
animal is the same as killing it. It's the same.
It's considered take and you can't harass them.
And so throwing rocks at them or shooting bullets
at them to scare them off of a kill site would
be harassing them, interfering with feeding,
right? Correct. Yeah, so that's not a bad penalty,
especially the hunting guys like this who love
to hunt, take away their hunting privileges for
a few years. That hurts. And I know you were
short on time, but that wasn't the end of it.
Oh, no, tell us more. We have like five more
minutes. Yeah, this should take long. So Grove
gets sentenced and the judge kind of basically
tells him, no screwing off while you're on probation.
Well, that didn't last long. November 12th, we
get another complaint, an anonymous complaint
that this is like four months after his conviction,
that him and another guy named Spencer Carrico
were out poaching elk. So we shimmy up to Dubois,
go to Gro's new house, and he's not home, but
there's a deer leg sticking out of the shed there,
the fresh deer leg. And this guy's not supposed
to be hunting, right? So what's a deer leg doing
in the shed? Right. Long story short, Grove and
this guy Carrico are out driving around the roads
in Dubois hunting deer and hunting elk. And Carrico
has no licenses to do any of this. He ends up
shooting a deer, takes it to Grove's house. Grove's
driving his truck, transports it, helps him butcher
it. And then they're shooting that elk too with
no permits. And when we're there wanting to talk
to him about this, We pulled back because they
weren't home and we parked down the street They
showed up and both of them go in the house We
go knock on the door and they won't answer it
because they see the game words outside the door
We we do character was a younger guy. So we just
called his mom Mom pulled his hair and pulled
his ear and he came out pretty much he Agreed
to come back home and we were waiting for him
in his mother's house Nice. And he was a reluctant
suspect. He didn't want to tell us anything about
Grove. But by the end of the interview, he had
confessed that him and Grove were out coaching
wildlife while Grove was on revocation. And long
story short, after that, since Grove was on probation,
we waited till the state finished their prosecution
in state court for the deer violation. And that
documented that Grove had busted his probation
federal court. The judge had seen Grove a number
of times over the years, so the state sentenced
him to one year in jail. So he went to jail and
the federal judge, um, had tacked down an extra
six months. So Kelly Grove went to prison. Um,
I want to say this about it and closing it. Yeah.
When people cooperate with us, especially at
great risks to themselves, right. It's a pretty
scary proposition. I mean, you have to stand
up against a community or even with friends or
coworkers. So the people who risk the most in
this case, I submitted them for a reward under
the Lacey Act to give them some, and under ESA
to give them some kind of financial thanks for
helping us. And I think it went a long way. Good
for you. Yeah, good for you. There are rewards
available for some of these things under the
Lacey Act. It's available. There's a Lacey Act
reward account that allows Fish and Wildlife
to give out rewards for information. Good for
you for making sure that happened. And in closing,
you know, this was one bear, and you and I were
talking in the beginning about the bear population.
And we in law enforcement operate in the realm
of individual victims, whereas biology might
operate in the realm of a population. And what's
tough about our jobs, and I'm sure you feel this
way, I miss that mission of protecting wildlife.
And I know even after I left, that grizzly bears
are still taking it on the chin by certain people.
And all wildlife is. And to the men and women
who are still out there doing it, you know, I
want to cheer them on for my retirement seat,
but I do miss that mission. More importantly,
I miss the satisfaction of avenging like the
death of that bear. So even though it's just
one. Yep. No, and it is one bear, but the deterrent
impact you had in being so diligent about pursuing
the case and ultimately, you know, getting your
man, it has a deterrent impact which has the
potential to save future bears. So yeah, I appreciate
you saying that. And I miss it too. I miss it
every day because I loved protecting natural
resources and I loved Pursuing people that just
kind of wanton Lee broke the law, you know, it
drove me insane that there were I don't like
criminals and I I liked being the guy that put
an end to criminal behavior and I know you did
too and it's Ten times more satisfying when you're
doing it to protect wildlife resources and natural
resources for the entire population of the United
States and the world So that that's uh, that's
pretty cool. I Will say and I'm sure you'll agree
with this, you know Of course just like any workplace.
There are people that are superstars and average
but for the most part in the US Fish and Wildlife
Service Special agents are extremely tenacious
and If you commit a wildlife crime, you know
Fish and Wildlife Service agents will pursue
you. They will catch you and they will put you
in jail Yeah interesting you say that Uh, Gro's
lawyer and that proffer at the end of his post
conviction, uh, she had made some comment to
that effect of why did it take you guys so long
to do this? And the U S attorney that was handling
the case, he's now a judge here in town and,
uh, he kind of let her have it. He said, you
know, you really think that we wanted to drag
this case out for this long. What about the actions
of your clients? Don't even try and sell that
here. So, and lastly, I wanted, and everything
you said is exactly right, Ed. And the last thing
I want to say is that none of this stuff gets
done by one individual agent. You can't say enough
good about the state officers, you know, Scott
Browning, Brian Baker, Brian DeBolt, the officers
that came and helped with the takedown, the other
agents who ventured over Bo Stone. That helped
put this together and then without a good US
attorney who cares about wildlife, you know Yeah,
it got done because we had good people helping
too So my thanks to all of them for doing what
they did for grizzly bears Yeah Yeah, and there
are more cases for you and I to talk about on
future episodes Steve, thank you so much for
sharing Your experience on this case great job
on it as with all the work that you do I loved
hearing about it and I'm sure our listeners will
to controversial hard topic to talk about sometimes
but I think and I know you agree super important
that predators exist in the Western US and Like
you, I was proud to protect them through the
federal laws that are available. So thanks again
for being on the episode. I really appreciate
it. And Ed, thanks for having me and thanks for
hearing this story and putting it out there for
people to hear it. So thanks. You bet. All right.
All right. That'll do it for this episode of
Nature's Secret Service. If you want to learn
more about the Barber Point Grizzly Bear case
or Steve's career, you can go to the Nature's
Secret Service. website. There will be some documents
and photos posted there for you to take a look
at, as well as you can listen to this episode
right off the website. Thanks for joining us
today. We'll see you next time. Nature's Secret
Service is written and produced by me, Ed Newcomer,
and is co -produced by the DHTV team here at
California State University Dominguez Hills.
Follow us on social media and connect with us
online at naturessecretservice .com.