The Pennsylvania Game Commission was justified in its three-year removal of a taxidermist’s hunting and trapping privileges after he illegally imported five bear carcasses into the United States from Canada, a state appellate court has ruled.
A three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania unanimously rejected Steven Maulfair’s challenge to the commission’s action.
Such a challenge to the ruling is unusual.
Although the commission may revoke upwards of 1,000 licenses a year, “at best, two to three” cases are contested in court, “and that’s on the high side,” said Jason Raup, the commission’s assistant counsel who argued the case.
According to the court ruling, Maulfair coordinated a 2012 bear-hunting expedition to Quebec for Maryland and Pennsylvania hunters. He didn’t participate in the hunt but was to do taxidermy work on the bears.
The hunters, who had some of the bears’ meat, were stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border because they lacked the required export documents. Authorities confiscated the meat.
Maulfair obtained export permits in Quebec to transport the carcasses in a freezer on his truck to his taxidermy shop in Elizabethtown, in south-central Pennsylvania, but he signed the hunters’ names because they’d already left Canada, legal documents said.
“He came clean at the border” and offered to surrender the carcasses, according to his lawyer, Dennis Shatto of New Cumberland. Despite Maulfair’s permit problem, the carcasses weren’t confiscated and authorities let Maulfair cross the border with them, according to his brief.
Later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a state wildlife conservation officer questioned Maulfair and issued five citations for violating the state game law by possessing and importing the bear parts.
Raup said that under state law, “if you possess it or import it unlawfully, it’s a crime in Pennsylvania.”
Maulfair contended that he thought the group’s Canadian outfitter had obtained the permits. Even so, he pleaded guilty and was fined $5,000 but claimed he didn’t know the conviction jeopardized his license.
Shatto said, “I don’t see this guy did anything wrong whatsoever. People plead guilty for any number of reasons.”
Shatto said Maulfair has pleaded not guilty to related charges in Quebec, but that case remains open.
Based on the conviction, the game commission initially revoked Maulfair’s privileges for five years. The revocation was shortened to three years based on an administrative hearing officer’s recommendation.
Shatto said his client would have accepted a one-year revocation.
Maulfair appealed to the Commonwealth Court, arguing that the punishment was too severe.
But the court disagreed.
The decision written by Judge Robert Simpson said Maulfair, not the hunters, was responsible for obeying the rules and regulations.
“Maulfair acknowledges he used poor judgment in signing the names of the hunters to the export permits, but he asserts he had no practical choice,” the decision said.
By pleading guilty, the court said, “he cannot challenge the facts underlying his admitted violations,” including his claim that the game warden “led him to believe he would not suffer revocation if he pled guilty.”
The decision quoted the hearing officer’s finding that Maulfair’s conduct was “particularly troubling” because he had “significant experience in hunting and traveling to and from Canada, having done so between 60 and 70 times. With that experience, it seems reasonable to conclude that the hunters reasonably relied on him to make sure the appropriate licenses and permits were in place.
“By his own admission, Maulfair failed to so much as even research the applicable law, rules and regulations relating to the taking and transport of Canadian bears into this country.”
Shatto said his client’s legal options are limited but he may ask the court to reconsider its ruling.
Raup, the commission lawyer, said the convictions shouldn’t affect Maulfair’s taxidermy license.
Since 1980, the game commission has revoked from 690 to 2,327 licenses a year. It issued 863 revocations in 2014.