3 soldiers fined in southern Colorado poaching case that involved deer killed illegally on Fort Carson land
An Army sergeant, an Army staff sergeant and another soldier have all been fined after being convicted in Colorado on poaching charges. An investigation by Colorado Parks and Wildlife determined five deer were killed illegally on the Fort Carson base and one was killed on state land.
Sgt. Jacob Curtis Keyser was fined $19,005 and had to forfeit his hunting rifle. Staff Sgt. Juan Salcedo was fined $8,817. Both had a number of penalizing points assessed against their hunting privileges. Another soldier CPW didn't identify was also fined $900.
The case started 14 months ago when a hunter contacted the law enforcement agency that oversees Fort Carson, the Army base located south of Colorado Springs. The hunter reported that they had come across a dead mule deer that appeared to have been illegally poached.
CPW responded to the scene and Wildlife Officer Deme Wright, working with Fort Carson's Conservation Law Enforcement Officers, found another dead deer 100 yards away. Cuts of meat had been taken from both deer's bodies and the antlers had been sawed off of one of them.
The team investigating the case followed human boot tracks in the snow that led from the bodies of the deer and they came close to a wildland firefighter station. Staff at the station had taken a photo of a vehicle that had been parked there for 48 hours. It turned out to be a vehicle Keyser and Salcedo used.
"That photo changed everything," Wright said in an interview in CPW's Colorado Outdoors magazine describing her work on the case.
CPW used information from social media and the cellphones of the soldiers to research the case further. They found "evidence of poaching and proof of multiple instances of trespassing military and state lands." It was also discovered that the third soldier had helped with getting rid of some of the venison Keyser obtained illegally.
CPW says an upcoming hearing will determine whether the soldiers will receive a hunting suspension.