Fort St. John hunter fined $5,000 for killing northern mountain caribou

The article below includes an image of a dead animal. Reader discretion is advised.

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A local man has been fined thousands of dollars and banned from hunting in B.C. for three years for killing an at-risk species.

According to a press release from the Ministry of Environment and Parks, the incident occurred in October 2022 in the Pink Mountain area, when the man killed an animal he misidentified as a white-tailed buck.

Once he began to harvest the animal, he realized he had actually killed a northern mountain cow caribou, a species on the province’s blue list that tracks animals at risk of endangerment.

Upon discovering the animal’s actual species, the man self-reported the incident to the Conservation Officer Service (COS). The COS retrieved the animal’s body and donated it to a local First Nation.

Adam Ward-Pattison plead guilty to killing wildlife not with an open season, a violation of the Wildlife Act.

He has been fined $5,015, the majority of which will go to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, and is prohibited from hunting or accompanying hunters anywhere in the province for three years. 

An unedited image of the deceased caribou is included here: