5.30pm - By JO-MARIE BROWN
Three Bay of Plenty deer poachers have been fined $41,500 for unlawful hunting, unlawful possession of firearms and failing to display registration marks on a helicopter.
Dean and Grant Matthews, both formerly of Whakatane, and Daryl Lavender from Edgecumbe, were today found guilty in the Rotorua District
Court of deer poaching in January last year.
At the time, prices of up to $7 a kilo were being paid for feral deer and Dean Matthews' company, East Bay Heli Services, had been able to earn $124,000 in just 10 weeks by shooting hundreds of the animals.
But the trio's subsequent hunting trip in January over a privately-owned block of land between Murupara and Napier known as "Pine Milling" came unstuck when the land-owner spotted their helicopter.
Having taken photos of the Robinson R22 chopper with deer carcasses slung underneath and having seen 30 deer being loaded onto a trailer, the landowner called police in to investigate.
Today Judge Chris McGuire said the men were motivated by greed and were arrogant in the way they poached deer from someone else's property.
Herald Feature: Conservation and Environment
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