Stolen game: Poachers killing wildlife for trophy parts

DENVER - The video shows two men twirling their guns, shooting from a moving ATV and drunkenly falling over barbed-wire fences to collect their trophies. The men joke with each other as they break the law and illegally kill animals.

"This sure ain't legal, but [expletive] it!" Mike Battaglia said on the video. "This is what we do out here in Maybell, Colorado on our day off."

Battaglia would eventually plead guilty to charges of poaching. The video was taken by an undercover investigator for the Colorado Division of Wildlife trying to catch people like Battaglia.

The number of poachers ignoring wildlife laws and killing big game for their antlers or other trophy parts is on the rise across Colorado, according to the DOW. Officers say the two factors driving poachers are ego and money.

"We say they have the disease. And to these people, capturing and killing wildlife for ego or for profit is all-consuming," said Jay Sarason, chief of law enforcement for the DOW. "They act as if they are possessed. And they will continue to do it until after they are caught."

Field officers have discovered and heard about more kill sites this year than last year, where the head of the animal was cut off and stolen and the body of the deer, elk, antelope or big horn sheep was left behind to spoil.

Poaching harms wildlife habitats and populations and cheats hunters, photographers, hikers and nature lovers, according to the DOW. Wildlife officers write about 2,150 tickets a year to hunters; 200 are for serious poaching crimes such as for thrill-killing, hunting without licenses, and poaching or wasteful destruction.

"What we see is the aftermath of people going out and killing trophy animals and removing those trophy parts, which would be the antlers or the horns and leaving the carcasses to rot," Sarason said. "It is so disrespectful to the wildlife and gives hunting a bad name."

Antlers are valuable. They can earn poachers hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars per mount.

"Some people do it purely as a business. They've detached from their activity. It's just pure dollars and cents. They don't see wildlife as anything other than something you can buy and make a buck," Sarason said.

Wildlife officers believe they only catch the tip of the iceberg of the poaching.

Unchecked, they fear poachers would wipe out every species off Colorado's landscape in a very short time.

"I just see this travesty when the animal is killed and it's wasted," Sarason said. "The meat is wasted; the honor of that animal is wasted and destroyed by the manner in which it was taken."

Earlier this month, Battaglia, of Craig, pleaded guilty to illegally possessing three or more big game animals and to hunting elk without a license in Colorado after criminal investigators videotaped him and a friend ignoring wildlife laws.

Battaglia feels bad about what happened in the woods, according to his attorney Christopher Beasley.

"He doesn't normally poach and is sure as heck won't do it in the future," Beasley said.

Beasley says Battaglia expects to have his hunting privileges suspended soon.

9NEWS is not identifying the man in the video with Battaglia because he has not been charged.

Criminal investigators have also covertly videotaped poachers jumping out of their vehicles and shooting at decoy deer in the woods. Those hunters received tickets, fined and possibly had their hunting licenses suspended.

The worst poacher in Colorado's history was George Waters from Iowa in 2002. On undercover surveillance tapes, he bragged to friends he's killed more top bucks in the world that were registered as Boone and Crockett trophies than anyone ever has or ever will, while wildlife officers say most hunters are lucky to see one in their lifetime, let alone kill one. One undercover special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service figures Waters probably wasted as many as one-thousand big game animals.

When he was caught in 2002, Waters forfeited 140 antlers, nine firearms and admitted in a plea agreement to poaching 45 trophy animals including white tailed deer in Iowa, and elk and mule deer in Colorado in violation of state and federal wildlife laws.

He did it for the money, according to investigators. Waters sold most of the trophy antlers, earning at least $270,000 over a decade. It was game for greed.

"As far as sheer numbers and audacity and willingness to break laws and eagerness to do it, Waters was the worst," said Glen Smith, the lead investigator on the case. "But ego did him in. He couldn't keep his mouth shut. He would brag about it and say, 'They'll never catch me.' And we didn't for many years."

Waters got caught after a sharp-eyed Colorado wildlife manager spotted a deer head high-up in a tree where it didn't belong. For a decade, Waters was shooting big game illegally, slicing off the heads and then camouflaging the antlers. He would duct-tape the antlers, spray paint them so they blended into the branches and hide them in tree tops until he could retrieve them later. He also camouflaged his weapons in case DOW managers came to his campsites, according to a federal investigator.

Waters' wife told 9NEWS he's, "never going to comment," about his case. After a joint investigation by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the DOW and the U.S. Attorney's office, Waters ended up pleading guilty and serving five years in prison, paying more than $40,000 in fines and restitution and can never hunt or carry a firearm again in his life.

Meanwhile, Colorado's other 240 district wildlife managers and eight criminal investigators are trying to protect the wildlife from other poachers who want to feed their egos and fill their pocketbooks with big game animals.

"Hunting is not about the size of the antlers or the size of the horns. It's about the experience in the woods, it's about using your skills and showing respect to wildlife," Sarason said.

Sarason began protecting animals when he was just 8 years old and he was hunting with his dad in Northern New Mexico. He saw a jeep chasing an exhausted antelope back and forth across a field, the passengers shooting out of the vehicle. Sarason tugged on his dad's sleeve and asked how they could stop it. His dad said they would call the game warden.

"It was offensive to me as a kid and it's offensive to me now," Sarason said. "But now we have the satisfaction of catching these people."

The DOW gets most of their tips about poaching from the public. If you have seen or heard about illegal taking, the DOW hopes you'll contact "Operation Game Thief" by e-mailing game.thief@state.co.us or by calling 1-877-265-6648. Officers say you can be anonymous and can possibly earn a reward for reporting a violation.

If you have any news tips, please e-mail 9Wants to Know Investigative Reporter Deborah.Sherman@9NEWS.com.