A pair of Ohio sport wardens who cracked one of many greatest poaching instances in state historical past — the CJ Alexander buck — have been honored for his or her work by the Pope and Younger Membership. Isaiah Gifford and Matt Roberts, each wildlife officers with the state’s Division of Pure Sources, acquired P&Y’s Wildlife Regulation Enforcement Officer Award on the membership’s Arizona conference this month. P&Y offers out the award as soon as each two years to an officer (or on this case, officers) for his or her excellent work associated to wildlife violations.
“We began [an award] again in 1995 to acknowledge wildlife biologists for his or her work, and I began pondering we have to one thing [similar] for conservation officers,” P&Y conservation chair and retired sport warden Doug Clayton tells Out of doors Life. “You have a look at all of the work these officers do and it’s [mostly] behind the scenes. So most of the people doesn’t see this, and even the searching neighborhood, they know poaching goes on however they don’t actually know the extent of it.”
Gifford and Roberts are the first-ever co-recipients of the award in addition to the primary Ohioans, in keeping with the company. Giffords, 26, has labored for the DNR since 2023, whereas Roberts has greater than 20 years with the company. The 2 officers have been chosen for the award due to their roles investigating the now-notorious poaching case involving CJ Alexander.
After utilizing a crossbow to poach what would have been Ohio’s new No. 1 all-time typical whitetail, Alexander made up an elaborate story to cowl up the truth that he dedicated greater than a dozen associated crimes, together with repeated trespassing. He then shared that fabricated story to advertise himself and the deer with a number of media retailers — which included interviews with Out of doors Life and promoting his story to a minimum of one different searching outlet.
“This was a wonderful case,” Clayton says. “A variety of wildlife instances are reduce and dry, however then you’ve got these massive ones that simply spiderweb out — you discover one factor that results in one thing else, and typically you’re coping with a number of jurisdictions or the Feds. Lots of people simply don’t understand how concerned a few of these instances are, and what it takes to carry them to fruition.”
Gifford and Roberts performed a cautious investigation for a full 12 months. Though Alexander repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and doubled down on his innocence, the 2 wardens finally cracked the case broad open by securing his cellular phone information. The texts, GPS location knowledge, and different proof therein revealed Alexander’s lengthy historical past with the buck he nicknamed “Megatron”, alongside along with his true intentions for killing the deer.
In Alexander’s personal phrases, texted to his fiancé just some weeks earlier than he poached the 200-plus-inch buck: “I’m gonna get provided silly cash for this deer head babe …. Like shopping for home sort cash … This deer is gonna make us cash.”
Learn Subsequent: CJ Alexander to Serve Time, Pay $43K for Poaching Large Ohio Buck and Making an attempt to Cowl It Up
In October 2024, Alexander pleaded responsible to 14 prices associated to the poaching. He was sentenced in December to 90 days in jail, together with $43,000 in fines. Of that, $39,696.73 went on to the Ohio Wildlife Fund to reimburse the state for the lack of such an unimaginable buck. (Like some states, Ohio calculates a particular restitution payment primarily based on whole inches of antler of an illegally-taken deer.) Alexander’s accomplices, his sister Kristina and his mates Corey and Zachary Haunert, additionally pleaded responsible and have been charged individually.
The final recipient of P&Y’s Wildlife Regulation Enforcement Officer Award was Lt. Stacey Lewton of the Nebraska Sport and Parks Fee in 2023. Lewton and the NGPC have been instrumental within the Hidden Hills Outfitters bust, which spanned a number of states and concerned greater than 30 different people, together with the Bowmars.