January 2022 - 16

IN THE FIELD
Several factors and circumstances helped the Wyoming Game and Fish Department solve a gray wolf poaching case. (Adobe Stock Photo)
More than a hunch
Game and Fish leans on data and forensics to solve
a wolf poaching case
By Game and Fish staff
T
eamwork, along with science and
technology, enabled the Wyoming
Game and Fish Department to catch
a man who poached a gray wolf in
northwest Wyoming in the fall of 2017.
Lane Bunner of Casper illegally shot a
collared gray wolf on Sept. 28, 2017, while elk
hunting southeast of Moran in Teton County
in the Wolf Trophy Game Management Area.
The 2017 wolf hunting season did not open
until Oct. 1. Bunner registered the wolf at the
Game and Fish's Casper Region office on Oct.
11 as legally taken on Oct. 7.
A mortality signal from the wolf's collar,
along with DNA samples, provided evidence
Bunner harvested the wolf illegally. On Sept.
28, 2017, Game and Fish Wolf Biologist Ken
16 | January 2022
Mills received a report of the wolf's collar
emitting a mortality signal. Mills notified
Jackson Game Warden Jon Stephens and
conducted a field investigation to locate and
recover the collar. The collar was in good
condition other than it had been cut and
removed from the wolf and tossed along a
U.S. Forest Service road southeast of Moran
Junction.
Game and Fish collects genetic samples
from all wolves captured and collared for
monitoring purposes in northwest Wyoming.
When Bunner reported his wolf harvest to
the Casper Regional Office it was checked by
a biologist and game warden as required by
law. During the registration process a DNA
sample was taken from the wolf for use in the
Game and Fish's routine genetic monitoring
of the wolf population.
In early 2020, Mills, acting on a hunch,
asked the Game and Fish's Wildlife Forensic
Lab in Laramie to cross-reference DNA
samples from wolves that hunters had checked
in with wolves that had been captured and
collared for monitoring purposes. The lab's
results showed a genetic match between the
collared wolf that died on Sept. 28, 2017, and
the wolf Bunner brought to the Casper office
he claimed to have killed on Oct. 7. The lab's
results showed the two matching DNA samples
had such a strong correlation that there was
less than a 1-in-266 billion chance another
wolf would match the same genetic profile.
This proved that the wolf shot and killed by
Bunner had been illegally taken on Sept. 28,
two days before the season opened.
Bunner was charged with taking a trophy
game animal without the proper authority,

January 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2022

January 2022 - 1
January 2022 - 2
January 2022 - 3
January 2022 - 4
January 2022 - 5
January 2022 - 6
January 2022 - 7
January 2022 - 8
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https://www.nxtbook.com/wyominggame/WyomingWildlife/dec-2021
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https://www.nxtbook.com/wyominggame/WyomingWildlife/December2020
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