Anchorage Daily News

FAIRBANKS -- Jeff King wants new evidence considered in his trial on charges he poached a moose inside Denali National Park and Preserve.

The four-time Iditarod champion and his attorney say the National Park Service put up new boundary markers along the park's northeast border after the date King is accused of slipping into the park to shoot a young bull last year.

The defense is hoping the new evidence proves the area was not clearly marked when the 52-year-old dog musher, who was hunting with his daughter, shot the moose.

King claims that dates on the markers show they were put up within days after the courtroom part of his trial ended last month.

A park service spokeswoman says putting up border markers is routine business inside the 6-million-acre park.

The testimony part of King's trial on the poaching charge concluded in August. Closing arguments were ordered to be submitted in writing, with the final argument by the prosecution due this coming Thursday.

But the defense has asked the judge to reopen the evidence part of the trial and let King submit what he says is proof that the boundary wasn't clearly marked when he killed a moose about 600 feet inside the park's northern edge on a hunting trip last September.

Only federally qualified subsistence users, which King is not, are allowed to hunt within park boundaries.

King has lived in Denali Park for more than 30 years and hunted in an area near the park boundary for the last nine years.

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