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Man convicted of poaching in third Wyoming county

SHERIDAN (WNE) — A man was convicted of extensive poaching in the Bighorn Mountains Tuesday, making it his third county in Wyoming to be convicted of similar crimes.

Sheridan County Circuit Court Judge Shelley Cundiff sentenced Russell Vick, 56, to one year of imprisonment at the Sheridan County Detention Center and a total of $70,000 in fines and restitution for unlawfully taking three antlered moose and one big game animal, a cow moose, between the years of 2007 and 2011 in the Bighorn National Forest in Sheridan County.

According to court documents and testimony shared Aug. 31, by lead Wyoming Game and Fish Department Investigator Dustin Kirsch, Vick illegally poached four moose in the Bighorn Mountains without a license. 

The Sheridan County charges come after Vick received a suspended sentence in 2006 in a Weston County case where he allegedly poached bighorn sheep, and pleaded no contest to eight counts of illegally taking a game animal without a license or during a closed season in Campbell County Circuit Court in June 2020. 

 
 
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