NORTH COAST, Calif. – A new bill that's been introduced in the state Legislature is taking aim at poachers and attempting to increase the fines and penalties associated with convictions.

North Coast Assemblyman Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata) introduced AB 1162, which he said is mean to protect wildlife and improve hunting in California.

AB 1162 would increase fines to as much as $40,000, along with forfeiture of hunting licenses and seizure of equipment for poachers who intentionally target big game trophy mammals – such as deer, elk, bighorn sheep and antelope – as well as those who use bait or spotlights, take game out of season or wantonly wasting game meat.

Chesbro's office said AB 1162 has received bipartisan support, and is sponsored by the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance, one the state’s largest coalition of hunting and wildlife preservation organizations.

“Long-time hunters and game wardens who have been working in the field for decades tell me that poaching is at an all-time high in California,” Chesbro said in a statement issued by his office. “AB 1162 provides the Department of Fish and Game with an effective tool to protect our game and wildlife, some of California’s most valuable resources. My bill is modeled on legislation supported by hunters in other Western states where poaching has also become a big problem.”

Chesbro said that if AB 1162 becomes law, the Department of Fish and game also will be able to ask for significantly higher civil penalties for particularly egregious poaching cases.

He reported that civil penalties for poaching have remained static for more than 20 years, “while the market value of wildlife has climbed sharply.”

Mark Hennelly, vice president of the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance, said that AB 1162 would ensure that poachers pay back the entire value of wildlife they effectively stole from the public.

Department of Fish and Game statistics show that poaching cases have grown in recent years.

Lt. Loren Freeman, a Fish and Game warden based in Clearlake Oaks, said he's also seen more instances of poaching firsthand here in Lake County.

He said increases in poaching may be because of the economy, with people rationalizing that it's OK to take animals out of season for subsistence purposes.

“The majority of the cases that we're running into right now involve deer” – specifically does and trophy bucks, he said.

Freeman said Fish and Game is currently working on three such active cases in the county.

He said he's not seeing trafficking in abalone or items like bear parts.

“That's not one of our major problems,” he said.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff has been Lake County's go-to prosecutor on poaching cases for more than a decade.

In recent years Hinchcliff said he's actually received fewer poaching cases from Fish and Game, which he believes is because wardens are having to spend more time enforcing environmental regulations and dealing with red tape rather than being able to enforce wildlife regulations.

As a result, he suspects that the number of poachers actually is larger than the cases he's receiving.

A hunter and outdoorsman himself, Hinchcliff said he believes the county's bail schedule, and the attitude of the local judges, gets good dispositions and fines in poaching cases.

In many cases prosecutors are seeking – and receiving – three-year licensing forfeitures and firearms seizures, he said.

Hinchcliff suggested that judges – upon whose discretion fines currently depend – may not go for the big $40,000 fines proposed in the legislation unless the bill set higher mandatory minimum fines.

“Then that's something that everyone would be required to follow,” he said.

Hinchcliff has his own ideas about how to make the laws tougher on poachers.

“I think there's extremely few Fish and Game poaching cases where a person can be charged as a felony,” he said.

He said Fish and Game also isn't seizing watercraft in some cases, which he suggested is an option.

Current misdemeanors that he said should be charged as felonies include targeting of trophy animals and trafficking offenses – especially for cases involving the trade in bear paws and bladders, and major abalone cases.

Hinchcliff said there is a huge market for bear paws and gall bladders, with poaching rings targeting black bears, killing the animals, taking only those selected parts and then leaving the carcasses to rot. He said the parts are then sold to markets in China.

He said there's also a big black market for trophy animals such as bighorn sheep and elk. Such cases, again, have traditionally only been charged as misdemeanors.

Some people convicted of poaching are now seeing fines of about $2,000, and they're looking their hunting privileges and firearms as well.

He said he rarely sees poaching cases coming out of a need for a person to survive.

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