An archer who went to Yellowstone National Park to make a videotape of himself calling and shooting bull elk was convicted of poaching elk after authorities recognized park vistas on the tape.
Donald Eugene Lewis told authorities he headed to Yellowstone because of its trophy bull elk."Where else in the world could an archery hunter find that many trophy bull elk in that short period of time?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Kip Crofts said Monday.
Lewis, 38, Cedar Bluff, Ark., and Arthur Sims, 40, Huntsville, Ala., pleaded guilty earlier this month to illegally taking elk in Yellowstone, which is off-limits to hunters. They shot at least three elk, according to authorities.
"It was trophy hunting gone to its most awful extreme," Crofts said. "It got to the point where you can't get those kinds of trophies with legal hunting."
Crofts said Lewis and Sims went to Yellowstone in September 1991 to make the videotape, which depicts the two shooting elk with bow and arrow.
When Lewis was arrested in Utah in November 1991 for an unrelated wildlife violation, game wardens found the tape in his truck. Authorities were led to Sims after seeing him in the video.
Crofts said that during his court appearance Lewis, who has been profiled in several hunting magazines, told the federal magistrate that he was driven to hunt in Yellowstone by keen competition among archers for trophy elk.
Both men were fined $15,000 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. While Sims had his entire prison sentence suspended, Lewis was ordered to spend 30 days of the total in jail.