Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- It's a simple story by Alaska standards.

A moose falls off a cliff on Lazy Mountain and dies. A nearby landowner -- Brian DeVilbiss, of the well-known local farming clan -- calls Greg Vaughn, a buddy who's on the list of people state authorities call to salvage roadkill moose.

The men butcher the moose. They share the meat.

That's where the story gets more complicated, though wildlife officials say what happened next is as Alaskan as filling a freezer.

The Alaska State Troopers issued court summons to both men in late March for failing to properly notify authorities before salvaging the moose. A wildlife trooper also confiscated the meat, which currently sits in a big walk-in evidence freezer at the agency's Palmer post.

Somebody had spotted "pieces and parts" of a moose calf near the Wolverine Creek Bridge as the road winds up to the DeVilbiss farm, said troopers Lt. Tory Oleck.

Troopers discovered that DeVilbiss and Vaughn never called the authorities as required before hauling off their prize, Oleck said.

DeVilbiss did not return calls seeking comment.

Neither did Vaughn, a Chugiak resident who serves as youth pastor at Eagle River's Church in the Wildwood.

A person self-identified as a relative who answered the phone at Vaughn's home said Vaughn thought the salvage was legal and was surprised to see a trooper at his door a few days later.

Here's the problem with what the two men did, state wildlife officials say:

The state requires anybody who finds a dead or injured moose to call somebody -- emergency dispatchers, the troopers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game -- before salvaging it.

It doesn't matter if the moose is on private or public property. The moose belongs to the state.

It also doesn't matter if the people involved are on the state's roadkill salvage list.

"I could go out and shoot a moose if I'm on the roadkill list, and come back a few hours later and say, 'Hey, look what I found! I'm on the roadkill list,' " said Tony Kavalok, a state wildlife biologist based in Palmer. "It's a way of putting some kind of control on people who might abuse that privilege."

Nobody's accusing either of the men involved in the Lazy Mountain case of doing that, however.

Both are cooperating with troopers and will likely be charged with violations rather than criminal misdemeanors, Oleck said. The lesser offense nets a maximum $500 fine, though that's probably more than Vaughn and DeVilbiss would pay if convicted, he said.

In general, salvage laws protect against poaching, Kavalok and Oleck said.

Poaching is a problem in the Mat-Su, where moose driven by winter snows turn up in easy-to-get locations -- browsing the roadside or wandering through relatively rural subdivisions.

Troopers arrest poachers several times a winter, Oleck said. Still unsolved: the case of a moose found along Knik-Goose Bay Road earlier this year with a bullet hole in it.

The salvage laws also make sure state protocol is followed, Oleck said.

If a moose dies on the road, for example, and nothing suspicious is involved, emergency dispatchers call the first name on a list of several hundred charities and individuals and keep trying until they find someone available to go out. Then that person or group goes to the bottom of the list.

If something is suspicious about the animal's death, then wildlife officials investigate before releasing the meat for salvage.

Vaughn wouldn't necessarily have gotten the call about the Wolverine Creek moose had DeVilbiss phoned authorities before salvaging the meat, Oleck said.

Still, he said, if the men are convicted, Vaughn will get to keep his place on the roadkill salvage list.

But the moose will go to a charity.

Find Zaz Hollander online at adn.com/contact/zhollander or call 352-6711.

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