THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512220409
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
A Carteret County waterfowl guide must serve four months in federal prison for helping men who illegally killed 56 ducks after hunting season had closed.
Although he did not shoot any of the ducks himself - and didn't even have a gun on the day of the incident - the guide, Corbett H. Davis III, was found guilty of four counts of aiding and abetting people who violated federal wildlife laws.
Last week in Washington, N.C., U.S. Magistrate Louise Flanigan sentenced Davis to 120 days in prison and one year of supervised probation.
Davis is the first person in North Carolina to be remanded to federal prison for violating waterfowl hunting regulations, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent Jack Baker said Thursday.
``Between Feb. 2 and Feb. 12, Corbett Davis III and his co-conspirators, Richard Hamilton, George Richards, Michael Grow and an unidentified juvenile male, made repeated trips to . . . dump corn in front of their waterfowl hunting blind on Long Bay, in Carteret County,'' Baker said in a statement issued Thursday. ``The purpose of these repeated `baiting trips' was to assure that large numbers of ducks would be present at the blind for an unlawful closed season waterfowl hunt which took place on Feb. 12, 1995.''
Around sunset that day, the guide and his four friends concealed themselves in the blind, waiting for ducks to come to the bait. When the ducks arrived and began eating, ``by the light of a nearly full moon,'' the men ``fired a barrage of approximately 20 shots into the mass of ducks that were feeding,'' Baker said.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agents apprehended the men immediately after the shots were fired and found 56 dead ducks floating in the water in front of the hunting blind.
Officers charged all four men with:
Taking migratory game birdsduring closed season
Taking migratory game birds on a baited area
Taking over the daily bag limit of migratory game birds
Taking migratory game birds after legal shooting hours
Taking migratory game birds with an unplugged gun
Taking migratory game birds with lead shot
Hunting on Sunday
Conspiracy to violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
During a plea bargain in July, the hunters each pled guilty to four of the charges. A judge ordered them to pay a $1,000 fine and a $40 special assessment. He also put the men on three years of active probation during which time they cannot violate any laws, possess a firearm or hunt.
Davis was found guilty of the four aiding and abetting charges in October. by CNB