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DENTRY: Darner brought down by conviction

By Ed Dentry, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 30, 2008 at 11:14 p.m.

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From trophy hunting's cavernous and ever-deepening Hall of Shame slithers one Kirt Darner, 69, of Crawford. He's guilty again. And going down.

Darner pleaded guilty on June 23 in Cibola County in New Mexico to receiving stolen bighorn sheep heads and transporting wild elk to a private shooting preserve. He faces up to four years in jail and fines of at least $10,000.

Readers with memories of hunting's tawdry side might remember Darner as the has- been, big-game guru who - back when the trouble started in 1990 - watched his celebrity status vanish like a scared buck in oak brush.

At one time his credits ranged from high-rolling outfitter and author to multiple trophy record holder and model hunter with his own line of clothing at Cabela's.

The trouble started when record- keeper Boone and Crockett noticed that a monster nontypical mule deer Darner claimed to have killed in San Miguel County in 1977 actually had been taken by another hunter 40 years earlier.

The trophy deer was pictured on the cover of Darner's book, How to Find Giant Bucks. None of the chapters recommended antiquing.

B&C booted the record, along with a desert bighorn sheep Darner claimed to have taken in Arizona. And it questioned several other Darner entries as bogus.

Darner told me at the time that envious "vigilantes" had framed him in the Arizona case and that the other accusations were trumped up.

"When you ride on the skyline, you're going to get shot at," he said.

As the muck thickened, Cabela's withdrew its sponsorship and his photos in its catalogue, touting a line of expert deer-hunting clothing.

Darner's descent into self- destruction went to the courts in 1994, when he was convicted in Colorado of illegal possession of wildlife.

In 1999, he was convicted of tampering with evidence and careless driving. The case involved a plastic decoy elk, which a client shot in a game unit for which he had no license, with Darner as his guide and wildlife officers as witnesses.

Darner's repeat offenses for trophy-hunting high jinks included a guilty plea in 2008 for trying to obtain landowner vouchers without owning enough land to be eligible for the program.

In 2000, he was a suspect in the theft of two Colorado bighorn sheep heads worth $20,000 each from a Montrose taxidermist.

In 2005, New Mexico wildlife officers with search warrants and information provided by Colorado officers found the stolen sheep heads on property Darner and his wife, Paula, own near Grants, in northwestern New Mexico.

New Mexico indicted the pair last year on 41 felony and misdemeanor charges. Last week, Darner pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property (the sheep heads) and transporting three state-owned wild elk to a private game park.

Darner is prohibited from hunting, fishing or owning firearms or working as an outfitter in Colorado and New Mexico. The district attorney in Montrose decided not to press charges, considering the severity of penalties levied on Darner in New Mexico.

No penalties have been suggested for a sleazy system that lionizes antlers and horns and allows their sale and resale, to the detriment of wildlife and corruption of America's hunting heritage.

Comments

  • July 1, 2008

    3:16 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Squatch writes:

    This guy is a scum bag problem is there are thousands more like him and see no problem with their actions.

  • July 1, 2008

    6:38 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Bluedot writes:

    "" The district attorney in Montrose decided not to press charges, considering the severity of penalties levied on Darner in New Mexico.""

    Looks like the people of Montrose need to get another District attorney! Probably a gun grabber-anti-hunter! To feel sorry for that Darner SOB is not acceptable behavior for a DA!

    If anyone needs charges filed against him, it is this scum!

    Dump that anti-D.A.!