Three young hunters who were convicted of illegally killing a mountain lion in Yellowstone National Park left behind a trail of pictures on social media websites that authorities obtained before they were deleted, helping bolster their prosecution.
Pictures posted on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook—including some that anyone could see—showed Corbin Simmons, 19, Austin Peterson, 20, and Trey Junhke, 20, with the dead animal.
In one picture that Peterson snapped, Simmons and Junhke stand behind a log, looking at each other and laughing, with the dead mountain lion sprawled across the wood and Simmons’ hands on top of the cougar. The picture was published by the Jackson Hole News and Guide.
The pictures were eventually taken offline but not before other hunters saw them and sent the information to the authorities.
Interviewing Simmons about the hunting on Jan. 10, Yellowstone special agent Jake Olson disclosed that the pictures helped officials build the case.
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“You know, we ended up getting a lot of this information from a guy in Bozeman off of Facebook, ’cause you guys put a bunch of stuff on social media,” Olson told him, according to public records obtained by the News and Guide.
The hunters were spoken to separately and struggled to keep their stories straight, confusing details such as who shot at the mountain lion.
The general story was that Peterson’s GPS device malfunctioned but he said that the GPS showed “all white” while Junhke said it was “pure black.” The hunters also scrambled when discussing who fired at the cougar; officers ultimately said all three discharged firearms and the animal was hit eight times.
Officials said the shooting took place after dogs with the men trapped it in a tree. The lion was hit while in the tree and tried to run but was soon hit again and killed.
The hunters denied hunting in Yellowstone but one of the pictures posted on Facebook seemed to indicate that they had been.
The men were charged with illegal hunting after violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits hunting in the national park. The illegal hunt took place in the northern section of the park on Dec. 12, 2018.
“According to court documents, Austin Peterson, Trey Juhnke, and Corbin Simmons, crossed the park’s marked boundary to hunt mountain lions. Each hunter admitted to shooting the lion and transporting the carcass back to their vehicle. Simmons then falsely claimed to have harvested the animal north of the park boundary in Montana. This affected the state’s quota system by denying a legal hunter the opportunity to legally harvest a lion,” Yellowstone National Park said in a press release on May 8.
The men all eventually pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to three years of probation, during which time they are banned from hunting, fishing, or trapping, in addition to restitution and fees.
“I would like to express a sincere thank you to Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, law enforcement officers at Yellowstone National Park, the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch, and the US Attorney’s Office—District of Wyoming for being involved in this case,” said Yellowstone National Park Chief Ranger Pete Webster in a statement. “Their thorough work spotlighted this egregious act and the consequences incurred for hunting illegally in Yellowstone National Park.”
