DNR catches more deer poachers

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has nabbed another set of out-of-state hunters for illegally taking deer. Lon Lindenberg, the D-N-R enforcement supervisor for southwest Iowa, says four men from Tennessee and North Carolina were arrested and charged with taking three deer in Clarke County earlier this month. The D-N-R also recently reported the arrest of two Arkansas men in Des Moines for poaching five deer. He says they’ve seen an increase in poaching by out-of-state hunters due to the cap on out-of-state deer licenses. The men in the Clarke County case pleaded guilty and paid nearly 43-hundred dollars in fines and damages — which included turning over four shotguns and one rifle. He says they also asked the court to confiscate an all-terrain Vehicle and a trailer used in the poaching, and that request was granted. Lindenberg says the confiscated items are sold or used by the D-N-R to catch poachers. A resident of Clarke County reported the possible poaching there and he says that was key in this case, and the one in Des Moines. He says the really good cases they make are usually always started by a call from the general public. The men charged in the Clarke County case were: 39-year-old Robert Caughron and 41-year-old John Holloway, both of Newport, Tennessee; 35-year-old Charles E. Black of Hartford, Tennessee and 31-year-old William B. Allen, 31 of Candler, North Carolina. A total of seven deer were seized in the Des Moines case, and more charges could be filed against those men.